The first Theatre Histories Working Group’s Online Seminar for the 25/26 series will take place via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday 2^nd September 2025, 5:00pm-6:15pm (BST). They are very pleased to welcome Eric Colleary (Harry Ransom Centre, U. Texas at Austin), who will join to talk about his work on Harry Houdini. Please do email them on theatrehistory@tapra.org to book your place and to receive the link. More information on this event below:

Houdini’s Library

Best known for his feats of escape, Harry Houdini was also one of the most ambitious collectors of his generation. By the time of his death in 1926, he had amassed a vast archive of rare books, pamphlets, posters, prints, photographs, and ephemera documenting the history of magic, spiritualism and theatrical performance. Houdini’s Library is an upcoming monograph and exhibit that will explore how Houdini leveraged his fame, financial resources, and wide-reaching networks – including booksellers, rival magicians, and theatre historians – to build an unrivalled collection that was as much about preserving the history of performance as it was in shaping it. Much of this material is now held at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. From David Garrick’s 1751 travel diary to rare documents that helped ignite the French Revolution, Houdini’s library continues to shape performance research a century after the master illusionist’s passing.

Dr. Eric Colleary is a performance historian and curator whose research explores the intersections of theatre, queer history, and cultural memory. For the past decade, he has served as the Cline Curator of Theatre and Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center where he stewards one of the world’s leading collections of performing arts archives including  the papers of Samuel Beckett, Edward Gordon Craig, David Hare, Lillian Hellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Arthur Miller, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard, and Tennessee Williams.

Save the Date

Finally, please save the date for their second online seminar, where we are looking forward to welcoming Erin Lee, Head of Archive at the National Theatre, on Wednesday 26 November, 5:00pm-6:15pm. More information to follow towards the end of the summer.