This summer, through the generous support of the Arts Undergraduate Research Internship (ARIA), I assisted Professor Fiona Ritchie with her research project focused on the women active in provincial British theatres throughout the Long 18th century. The research internship objective was to formulate an understanding of women’s contributions to the theatrical culture outside London, as well as gaining skills in primary source analysis, research and historical analysis. I was drawn to this project for its use of playbills: a kind of ephemera that lists the theatrical programming for the evening. As ancestors to the modern program and playbill as we know them today, they were printed on single sheets, often of low-quality thin paper, and distributed to prospective audience members to advertise the evening’s shows. Many libraries and archives have collections of restored playbills, and they serve as a primary source record of the theatrical culture of a given time and place. Looking at playbills broadly allows us to hypothesize about the actors listed on the bills and their careers.
Using these sources, I traced the careers of two actresses: Dorothy Jordan and Elizabeth Nunns. Jordan was a renowned actress in London but spent the later part of her career touring in the provinces. The playbills, sourced from a variety of archives across England and North America, allowed me to come to conclusions about her touring schedule and trace a route for her performances every year. I also consulted other primary sources, such as letters and advertisements for plays in newspapers, to contribute to the career outline I developed.
The playbills also led me to Elizabeth Nunns. One highlight of my internship was uncovering a playbill where Nunns, a lesser-known regional actress, publicly denounces Jordan, a celebrity, for her inability to honor a commitment which sent Nunns’ company into debt. Struck by the defiance and boldness Nunns displays in this announcement, I went down the rabbit hole, digging up what I could to learn more about her life and career. Since she worked primarily in the provinces and was never especially famous, the sources were fewer in number and less well-preserved than those concerning Jordan. Additionally, Mrs Nunns has never been formally biographed, unlike Mrs Jordan, who has, making the process more challenging and the sources less centralized. However, by poring through thousands of archived playbills and newspapers, I was able to learn that despite beginning as a background actress, she eventually came to independently manage several theatres in the Birmingham region.
I found primary source research to be quite challenging, which made it all the more rewarding. Many collections of artefacts, playbills and letters are not fully digitized, making research without travel difficult, and, if they happen to be digitized, the Optical Character Recognition can be faulty causing keyword searches to fail. The main obstacle is combing through hundreds of images and documents without being certain that I’ll find what I’m looking for at the end, which makes it even more satisfying when I did eventually find that missing puzzle piece.
Primary source research is especially fascinating to me, since the research is centered around material, tangible artifacts from a point in history. Ephemera provides a direct window to the past, allowing us to engage directly with all the people who’ve held these playbills, treasured them as mementos. This brings another, more human dimension to the research.
ARIA has been such a valuable learning experience, and I’m looking forward to exploring future opportunities in theatre history research. I have found this problem-solving, almost puzzle-like research extremely rewarding, as it is such a different side to performance studies than my English: Drama & Theatre program coursework. I am looking forward to hopefully continuing to explore theatre history research, potentially in my graduate studies. I am very grateful to the donors for the funding I received from the Faculty of Arts Internship Award, as I might not have been able to take on this incredible opportunity without its generous financial support. I am also very grateful to Professor Ritchie, for her wonderful mentorship and guidance throughout the summer!
