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The record-keeping role of the archive is one important way to build and sustain a local theatre tradition. When Centre 42 launched its digital theatre archive the Repository back in 2015, it was meant to do just that.
We privately called The Repository a ‘proof of concept’ – the programme had a short development runway of six months and a modest investment, but ultimately we wanted to find out whether it was possible to build a collection of artefacts that could serve as a record of Singapore theatre history.
This collection of artefacts, as a whole, would give users an impression of the trends and developments in Singapore theatre history, and, hopefully, whet their appetites to find out more from other archival resources. For this scope and purpose, the Repository focused on theatre ephemera, specifically the programme booklets, posters, brochures and other publicity collateral which form the residue of past theatre productions.
Six years on, this proof of concept was, for the large part, successful. The Repository held a tidy collection of over 2,400 artefacts from 16 companies, covering the years 1966 to 2019.
However, the Repository collection was severely limited in the picture it portrayed of Singapore theatre. There were many gaps, most notably an absence of the work of our independent peers, as well as documentation of the processes that led to the development of these theatre productions.