Royal Shakespeare Company Collection

The Royal Shakespeare Company Collection is one of the world's great theatrical archives, housed within the spectacular Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the banks of the River Avon in Stratford-upon-Avon. Spanning more than 140 years of stage history, the collection offers an unparalleled window into the life of Britain's national playwright and the living tradition of performing his works across the centuries.

At its heart, the collection houses thousands of costumes, props, set designs, photographs, paintings, and production archives that chronicle every major RSC production since the company's founding. From the sweeping doublets of Elizabethan-inspired productions to the avant-garde creations of contemporary designers, the garments on display illuminate how each generation of artists has reinterpreted Shakespeare's words through cloth, colour, and craftsmanship.

The collection's painting gallery is particularly distinguished, featuring an exceptional group of portraits of famous Shakespearean actors from the eighteenth century to the present day. Works by leading British artists capture legendary performers — including David Garrick, Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, and Laurence Olivier — in their most iconic roles, forming a visual history of theatrical performance itself.

Visitors can explore the Swan Wing, which houses rotating exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection, as well as the interactive Discovery Centre where families and school groups can handle replica props and try on costume pieces. Guided backstage tours of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre reveal the inner workings of a world-class producing house: the wardrobe department, the paint frame, and the stage machinery that makes transformation possible.

The collection also holds unique archival material including prompt books annotated by generations of directors, correspondence between playwrights and actors, and rare early editions of Shakespeare's plays. Together, these artefacts form an irreplaceable record of how Shakespeare has been imagined, argued over, and brought to life across four centuries of British cultural life.