A specialist drama library in the heart of Herefordshire.
The Powerhouse Play Library is a unique and invaluable cultural resource in our county. Thousands of plays, scripts and theatre texts are housed at our city centre home, alongside our creative development studio.
The collection grew from one simple question, put to hundreds of leading theatre, television and film professionals:
"If you could recommend one play to a young actor, what would it be?"
The response was extraordinary. Books arrived from personal bookshelves across the industry, many inscribed with handwritten notes, tips and advice to those just starting out. It is a rich, diverse and personal collection that connects our community directly to the world of professional theatre.
Contributors to the Powerhouse Library include actors Tom Hiddleston, Sally Hawkins, Vanessa Kirby, Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson, Russell Tovey, Dame Joanna Lumley, Zoe Wanamaker, Lucian Msamati and Denise Gough; playwrights Caryl Churchill, Alan Bennett, Arinze Kene, Simon Stephens, Mark Ravenhill and Patrick Marber; directors Jamie Lloyd, Indhu Rubasingham, Michelle Terry, Roy Alexander Weise and Michael Grandage; alongside donations from Nick Hern Books, Bloomsbury, Methuen Drama, the Almeida Theatre, the Bush Theatre and Soho Theatre.
The play library is a free and accessible learning resource for emerging talent in our community.
It provides young people and aspiring theatre-makers with the opportunity to read plays, access drama, and develop their own acting and writing skills.
The collection also includes a wide range of practical resources, from audition technique guides to monologues and duologues, supporting training and preparation for drama school auditions and career development in the performing arts.
For our community, the library is much more than a collection of books. It is a workspace for writers, and a development resource for actors and theatremakers.
The library sits at the centre of Powerhouse's wider programme, developing new writing, schools and college outreach and artist development work. It is a resource for the whole community: for those just starting out, for professional theatre-makers, and for anyone who is passionate about stories.
The collection was originally formed by The Mono Box, a London organisation that invited leading industry figures to donate plays from their personal shelves. As part of Powerhouse's capital redevelopment programme, we became the new permanent home in the West Midlands for the collection.