The Library

The Drama Association of Wales formerly housed the largest specialist Drama Lending Theatre Script Library in the world.

The library has now transferred to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and is available to DAW members.  You can contact the RWCMD directly on their Issue Desk on 029 2039 1331 or alternatively by email at Plays@rwcmd.ac.uk.

For now, we have left in place the information about the library, and how it was when it was with us, so you can see the sort of range that was available.  This way you'll have a idea of the kind of material that is likely to be available from RWCMD. 
 


Our lending library is the largest, English language, specialist lending library in the world. We stock more than 300,000 volumes, comprising bookshelves full of books

  • Plays
  • Technical theatre books
  • The entire Playsets and Lending collections of the former British Theatre Association and the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA)

 

 

Examples of library stock

We stock a wide range of materials on theatre history; books about theatre, playwrights and practitioners; design, lighting and stage management, and much more besides.

To give you a taste of the plays on the DAW shelves, the scripts are listed in categories:

Full Length Sets Welsh Language Collection
One Act - Female Casts One Act - Mixed Casts
General/Sources

 

Full Length Sets

These include works by:
Alan Ayckbourn • Agatha Christie • Anton Chekhov • Yazmena Reza • John Godber • Marie Jones • Arthur Miller • Harold Pinter • Pam Gems • George Bernard Shaw • Henrik Ibsen • Diane Samuels • Ronald Harwood • William Shakespeare • Alan Bennett • Lucy Gannon • J B Priestley • Noel Coward • Neil Simon

We also stock works as diverse as the murder mysteries of Peter Gordon and the entire Farndale Avenue series from McGillivray and Zerlin. And hundreds of other playwrights.

One Act - Female Casts

We have collections such as:
The entire series of Deckchairs by Jean McConnell and works by Jimmie Chinn • Enid Coles • David Campton • Cherry Vooght • L. Du Garde Peach • Doris M Day

We also hold the Sam Bate and Rae Shirley collections kindly donated by their families.

One Act - Mixed Casts

Our large collection includes works by playwrights such as:
Tom Stoppard • Samuel Beckett • Caryl Churchill • Anthony Booth • Margaret Wood • Christopher Fry • the entire Coarse Acting series by Michael Green • the three Davids…Edgar, Tristram and Foxton • James Saunders • Michael Fosbrook • collections of one act plays such as Confusions by Alan Ayckbourn

Welsh Language Collection

Although our Welsh language collection of plays is smaller by contrast, we are proud of the quality and quantity of scripts we have by well-known Welsh language playwrights such as:

Gwenlyn Parry • Manon Wyn • Ian Rowlands  Sêra Moore Williams • J. O. Francis • Meic Povey • Dic Edwards • Sion Eirian • Manon Eames • Aled Jones Williams • Wil Sam • Gareth Miles • Saunders Lewis • the adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays by J. T. Jones

The collection is also enhanced by purchasing work by new young Welsh language playwrights such as Gwyneth Glyn.

General /Sources

In recent years many private and county library collections have passed into DAW's hands making the DAW Theatre Library not only more comprehensive in its stock but also much bigger in size.

We have been fortunate in being able to house collections from the libraries of Kensington and Chelsea, Gloucester, Somerset, BBC Research library, London, the Inner London Education Authority library (ILEA) and the Greater Manchester Drama Federation, as well as many private libraries.

plays in storage office and library

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