London's Theatre Museum May Partner with Royal Opera House

The Theatre Museum, the London institution that houses a treasure store of theatrical memorabilia and that has been in danger of closing, may yet have a future.

According to Whatonstage.com, the Theatre Museum will be entering into a partnership with the Royal Opera House. Owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, the Theatre Museum's future was discussed at a meeting on May 18th and the idea of joining the Theatre Museum's collection with that of the Royal Opera House was called a "hopeful" one.

The partnership "would enable the ROH to use the Theatre Museum site to extend its educational activities and events and allow the Theatre Museum to continue to stage displays and educational activities in Covent Garden. The Trustees hope to take a final view on the best way forward by the autumn...While we are hopeful this will go ahead, we certainly cannot confirm anything at this stage," a Victoria and Albert Museum spokeswoman told the British theatre website.

According to Christopher Millard, who is the director of press and communications at the Royal Opera House, if the partnership comes into being, the Theatre Museum would be both an educational resource and a site for exhibitions, with involvement from theatre organizations such as the Society of London Theatre and The National Theatre.

The Theatre Museum, located at Russell Street in Covent Garden, has been in danger of closing ever since Heritage Lottery Fund twice denied the V&A Museum's request for a grant to be used for redevelopment.

"We have to present proposals to our own board shortly, and if they are happy, we will go ahead with a more detailed proposal. The meeting yesterday with the V&A was to see if this met with their approval, and it has, so we'll take it from there," stated Millard.

"The Theatre Museum exists to increase the enjoyment, understanding and study of the history, craft and practice of the performing arts in Britain through its collections, which are the largest of their type in the world. The Theatre Museum collects a wide range of documents, artefacts and works of art which record the history of the performing arts in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present," state notes on the Museum's website. "Costumes, designs, manuscripts, books, video recordings, including the National Video Archive of Performance, posters and paintings all play their part in helping to reconstruct the details of past performances and the lives of performers, past and contemporary. All the live performing arts are represented, including drama, dance, opera, musical theatre, circus, puppetry, music hall and live art."

For more information on the Theatre Museum, http://www.theatremuseum.org.

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