What’s, whats on, what to do

WHAT IS IT?

The Arxiu Lliure (Teatre Lliure Archive) is the digital space of the Teatre Lliure which allows users to browse our document holdings openly, at any time and from anywhere.

The goal of the Arxiu Lliure is to preserve and share the artistic testimonies of this theatre’s history generated by the Lliure or by third parties, to confer on them the historical value they deserve and to become a source of inspiration for both research and creation. In the Archive, users can discover and reexperience the stage in an intuitive yet logical way based on the interrelation of the materials documented there.

The Arxiu Lliure is a living space where the information and materials are updated on a daily basis. It is a space that connects the theatre heritage of the past with the present to show, move, recall and thrill.

WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

Photographs, videos, interviews, music, handbills, artistic programmes, posters, press clippings, collections of objects, sound documents, blueprints, etc. are all part of a set of more than 60,000 documents from 2,000 shows and events that can be consulted for educational, academic and/or cultural purposes.

All the materials are organised into nine main sections.

• productions All the shows and events at the Teatre Lliure from 1976 to 2019. This includes in-house productions, co-productions and guest shows in both the seasonal and parallel programming, although the document collection for the parallel programmes is not as extensive or the data as thoroughly analysed.
• people The database includes everyone who has worked at the Teatre Lliure, but only people who have participated in more than two productions have a separate information file of their own.
• dramaturgy This section includes original manuscripts and final texts of old pieces, copies from censorship, versions, directors’ notes, subtitles, scores and parts of scores, etc. If you want to consult a more recent text, please write to arxiulliure@teatrelliure.com to find out whether it is available and the conditions under which it may be available based on the broadcasting rights.
• set designs These are divided into two main sections: first, the stage space itself (blueprints, sketches of sets, scale models, castelets, council notes, etc.). The second is the costumes and character designs (costume sketches, wigs, working documents, costumes, puppets and masks, etc.).  
• photographs This section includes all the photographs, either black-and-white or colour, and contact sheets. They include portraits, rehearsal photos, pictures of the show itself, etc.
• documents Documents include objects and trophies, special documents (for commemorative or educational purposes, etc.), minutes of meetings, bylaws, manifestos, drawings of the Teatre Lliure sites, account books, records of loans and others.
• collectables This includes all the printed materials like posters or tickets, brochures, postcards, cards, flyers, artistic programmes, handbills (both on paper and digital) and more.
• multimedia This includes films and videos related to shows (trailers, teasers, interviews), sound recordings of interviews, music and complete show videos (these can be viewed on demand, subject to the restrictions of the broadcasting rights). The recordings are not always high quality and sometimes have only been made with a stationary camera for internal recordings.
• press For the time being, this includes old press clippings, with articles, interviews, reports, critical reviews and advertising until 1993. This section also contains the press clipping files collected by the Lliure related to its productions.

Not all the existing materials have been published yet. If you find anything missing, please get in touch with us.

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH THIS COLLECTION?

Any material held by the Teatre Lliure from the different shows put on in its theatres and others can be consulted in the Archive’s digital space. These documents can be seen directly by filling out a request form, with the exception that a few that are subject to rights. They are subject to this procedure in order to respect the intellectual property and copyright regulations in force, which are regulated by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, dated 12 April 1996, which approved the recast text of the Law on Intellectual Property, as well as the regulation on image rights, which are regulated by Organic Law 1/1982, dated 5 May 1982, on the civil protection of the right to honour, personal and family privacy and one’s own image.

That is, some materials can be seen directly without the need to request permission in advance, while others will only be accessible on demand by filling out the form and may only be consulted for educational, academic and/or cultural purposes. In these cases, when a user is authorised to see them, the Lliure will provide a link to access them. This material may not be downloaded and will only be available on a temporary basis.

For the purpose of clarity, all the documents in the Archive come with a brief text outlining the viewing conditions and/or allowed uses.

For more information, check the Archive’s access guide

WHAT HAVE WE DONE SO FAR?

• To create this new digital platform, we started with the holdings kept by the Teatre Llilure in its different internal document archives, storage sites and websites. We have created a digital device that connects all of them.
• A total of 12,079 objects and documents which were not yet in digital format were digitalised.
• The data from all the productions, co-productions and guest shows were mined and interconnected.
• The artificial intelligence programme qUIc was used to identify the more than 28,000 faces that appear in the photograph archive.
• More than 14,000 duplicate photographs were eliminated.
• The content of the shows contained in the historical websites until the 2018/19 season was automatically captured.
• The files on shows were linked with their revivals.
• The different artistic and technical categories were collected so that inquiries could be made on both aspects.
• The spelling of the names of the people who appear in more than two shows and have their own file were standardised.
• Tours were added.
• A narrative based on the digitalised holdings was created, the first of which is found in the section entitled Narratives.
• Public access has been provided to the materials depending on the stipulations of their respective rights protections.

WE WILL CONTINUE TO WORK ON…

• The systematisation and standardisation of the materials included in series, festivals and special programmes.
• The reformulation of the materials from concerts and shows featuring the Chamber Orchestra of the Teatre Lliure so that the titles of each piece can be found and all the performers in each ensemble appear.
• The revision of the names that appear in the show files so that they appear with a standardised spelling of their first name(s) and surname(s).
• The revision of the files on show revivals, as there are likely to have been changes compared to the original show.
• The inventory of professions: we have to finish our task of creating equivalences or new categories that are not entered into the files we have standardised (and therefore their corresponding names).
• The revision of the order in which the files appear once the inventory is revised.
• The standardisation of the titles and names of the materials digitalised in earlier periods, especially videos, compared to the titles and names being defined now.
• The inclusion of the characters or instruments in the show files.
• The inclusion of press documents and collectibles which were not automatically transferred from the websites prior to the new platform for technical reasons.
• The catalogue of the photos since 1997 whose authors are unknown.
• The digitalisation of the press clippings from 1993 until today.
• The inclusion of the photographic archives of Josep Ros Ribas, which he himself updates.
• All the shows and other materials from the 2019/20 season until today.

HOW TO BROWSE THROUGH THE MATERIALS

There are three main ways to browse through the materials:

open browsing What better way to get lost in the different categories and discover all the archived materials?

targeted browsing If you are looking for a specific object or piece, search for it in our search engine.

random browsing and browsing by narrative On the Archive’s home page, we suggest main themes connecting different elements under the label of narratives. There is just one narrative for the time being, but don’t miss the new ones that will be posted in the forthcoming months!

SALES OF MATERIALS

The Teatre Lliure has published artistic programmes of some of its in-house productions throughout its history. These are publications that allow you to take home the texts by classic and contemporary authors from around the world, including those that have appeared on our stages, or photograph albums of the set with the corresponding artistic information and an introduction to the mise-en-scène.

You can purchase artistic programmes for €4 (album), €6 (album + text) and €8 (album + text for the 11/12 season). Bookshops are given a 20% discount.

The Teatre Lliure has also issued special publications related to a given artist associated with theatre, such as Cesc Espluga and Fabià Puigserver, and related to our own history (Teatre Lliure 76/87 and Teatre Lliure 76/06, on the occasion of the theatre’s tenth and thirtieth anniversaries, respectively). All these volumes are also on sale at prices between €15 and €20.

We also sell the DDT, Documents de Dansa i Teatre (Documents on Dance and Theatre, at €6), a now-defunct publication which contains articles, conversations and other theoretical materials on Teatre Lliure shows since 2003.

Please check their availability by email.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE ARXIU LLIURE?

Because this archive is living and constantly growing, you can contribute by contacting us if you find something missing or detect mistakes in any of the information published.
The vast scope of this project makes mistakes inevitable, so your contribution is essential.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The students in internships Mireia Besas, Eulàlia Català and Marc Colomer (Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media of the Universitat de Barcelona) and Paula Alvear (Escola de disseny Serra i Abella), Josep Ros Ribas for his visual narrative and the main characters in the history of the Teatre Lliure for their cooperation throughout the entire process of creating the Arxiu Lliure to date.

A Teatre Lliure project with
Nubilum – data architecture, knowledge organisation and document processing support (with Coeli – documentary platform and support tools such as qUIc)
Edittio – web design

This digital project has been awarded funding from the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia within the ERDF line of subsidies.