Records of the Board of North West Playwrights

Scope and Content

The records of the Board include the minutes of the meetings, with occasional minutes from sub-committees. There are also a series of reports made by the paid Directors (until 1995 the Co-ordinator), and the associated papers, including correspondence and planning documents. A small quantity of material survives from the period pre-1990.

Administrative / Biographical History

North West Playwrights was originally run by a Committee, this was made up of six playwrights (all members of the Theatre Writers' Union), two funding representatives and one co-optee from the Black Arts Alliance. In 1995, following the creation of North West Playwrights as Company, the Committee became a Board. In 1997 the formal link between the union, now the Writers' Guild, was ended, with the union representatives no longer having a majority.

Arrangement

The records have been arranged into five series. Originally all the board papers were found together, stored chronologically, 1990-1995 in a bundle together, and 1995-1999 in a large lever arch file. For ease of use the minutes and directors' reports have been separated into their own series, with the rest of the associated papers as a series by themselves. In addition there is one file, previously labelled "Archive", that contains information on the founding of the project. It has been placed in a series of its own, to allow for possible accruals of other early records in the future.

The five series are as follows:

  • NWP 1/1 Minutes of Annual General Meetings
  • NWP 1/2 Minutes of Committee/Board Meetings
  • NWP 1/3 Directors' Reports
  • NWP 1/4 Associated papers
  • NWP 1/5 Records from North West Playwrights Workshop, pre-1990