The daily registers

The daily registers of the Comédie-Française are kept in the library-museum: for each day since 1680, it holds a record of the plays performed, the size of the audience and their distribution in the theatre, income and expenses, and a range of events affecting the theatre, most of which relate to political and social life. These registers represent an inexhaustible resource for the study of the theatrical arts, and more widely for the field of French economic, political and social history.

The purpose of the daily registers project is to digitise, capture and analyse data from the registers of the Ancien Régime period (1680-1793) and to open up research on this immense collection by designing research and visualisation tools. The project also taps into this pool of information in colloquia and publications, and makes this abundant source of information accessible to younger people through educational workshops that promote digital documentation as a tool for knowledge and learning.

The Comédie-Française is a partner for the daily registers project in association with the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense (HAR laboratory), Université Paris-Sorbonne (CNRS Cellf 17-18 research centre), Université de Rouen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Boston, USA), Harvard University (Boston, USA), and Victoria University (Canada)

The daily registers project of the Comédie-Française
In France, the project is financed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, the national digitisation programme piloted by the Ministry of Culture, the Labex of Paris Ouest-Nanterre ( Les passés dans le présent), the Labex of Paris 8 and Paris Ouest-Nanterre (ArtsH2H), the Institut universitaire de France, the Idefi-CréaTIC laboratory, and in the United States by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT,Boston), Harvard University, the Florence Gould Foundation, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and by the Franco-American Partner University Fund – Face.