Abstract
This chapter is concerned with amateur theatre’s relation with tangible and intangible heritage. It looks at how amateur theatre companies contribute to local cultural heritage through the custodianship of buildings, the dissemination of narratives and the generation of tangible heritage projects such as archives, recorded histories and exhibitions. Drawing on theories of material culture, it considers how material traces of performance evoke memories that become caught up in company histories and personal narratives. It explores how key elements such as names, logos, festivals and awards ceremonies might be understood as invented traditions, with specific reference to amateur theatre in the navy. It concludes with a discussion of how the digital realm is being used to disseminate histories, commemorate heritage and store memories of production processes.
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Change history
15 February 2019
The book was inadvertently published without the names of the chapter authors in the table of contents and the chapter opening pages. This has now been updated.
Notes
- 1.
See ‘20 Years in 12 places: Improving heritage, improving places, improving lives’, https://www.hlf.org.uk/about-us/research-evaluation/20-years-heritage. Accessed 31 March 2017.
- 2.
http://lacemarkettheatre.co.uk/LaceMarketTheatre.dll/UserDefined?PageName=0&SubPageName=2. Accessed 30 August 2016.
- 3.
Winchester Dramatic Society, A History of the Winchester Dramatic Society. Winchester: Sarsen Press, 2014, and Michael Shipley, Bolton Little Theatre: 75 Years of Drama, Leeds: Millnet Financial Services, 2006.
- 4.
https://www.llep.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Market-Towns-Study-August-2016.pdf. Accessed 6 September 2017.
- 5.
Interview Arthur Aldrich with Nadine Holdsworth, Market Harborough Theatre, 29 September 2016. All other quotations are taken from this interview.
- 6.
See http://harboroughtheatre.com/building/. Accessed 27 March 2017.
- 7.
Interview Vivien Window with Nadine Holdsworth, Market Harborough, 11 January 2016. All other quotations are taken from this interview.
- 8.
Backstage, the Journal of the Market Harborough Drama Society, January–February 2016, pp. 5–6.
- 9.
Jon Manley talking at the Evocative Objects Workshop, Worcester Swan Theatre, 27 June 2015.
- 10.
Harriet Parsonage talking at the Evocative Objects Workshop, The Questors Theatre, Ealing, 16 June 2015.
- 11.
Interview Sabine Hoffman with Nadine Holdsworth, Evocative Objects Workshop, Worcester Swan Theatre, 27 June 2015. All other quotations are taken from this interview.
- 12.
www.oldstagers.com. Accessed 12 April 2016. For a discussion of the Old Stagers see David Coates ‘The Development of Amateur Theatre in Britain in the Long Nineteenth Century’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2018.
- 13.
www.allenglandtheatrefestival.co.uk/index_htm_files/NLJan17b.pdf. Accessed 29 December 2017.
- 14.
Tim Stoneman email correspondence with Nadine Holdsworth, 29 April 2017.
- 15.
Interview Chris Blatch-Gainey with Nadine Holdsworth, HMS Collingwood, 3 February 2014.
- 16.
Commander Jules Philo email correspondence with Nadine Holdsworth, 5 April 2016.
- 17.
Interview Emma Thomas with Nadine Holdsworth, HMS Excellent, 17 July 2015. All other quotations are taken from this interview.
- 18.
www.rosebowlawards.org.uk. Accessed 10 September 2016.
- 19.
http://tadsthrapston.org.uk/. Accessed 15 December 2017.
- 20.
www.thejollylion.com. Accessed 30 August 2016.
- 21.
https://en-gb.facebook.com/The-Jolly-Lion-218283294899373/. Accessed 18 December 2017.
- 22.
Interview Jo Matthews with Helen Nicholson, The Globe Theatre, London. 22 November 2015.
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Holdsworth, N., Milling, J., Nicholson, H. (2018). Amateur Theatre: Heritage and Invented Traditions. In: The Ecologies of Amateur Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50810-2_7
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