Molnár Klára et al. (szerk.): Színházi Évkönyv 2010/2011-es színi évadra (Budapest, 2012)
Bevezető
Introduction The Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute jubilates its 60 years' anniversary in 2012. Our institution has been given the task, right from its foundation, to document the events of the Hungarian theatre life, to analyze the data about the theatre performances, to organize and publish the theatrical facts preserved first on paper files and more recently in computer records. We have been striving right from the start to provide authentic data to researchers and facilitate their orientation within the theatre field. Following the few initial issues published in varying formats, we have actually been publishing the Theatre Yearbook in this layout for nearly thirty years. Due to our progress of our digital databases, from 2008 onwards, a large part of the data published in the present book can also be accessed online on our portal www.szinhaziadattar.hu. Since then, we have been asking ourselves every time: do we still need a traditional printed version of the Yearbook? And we must answer yes again, and not just by a slavish following of a certain tradition; we start to edit a newer issue each year not just out of sheer habit, but because of being convinced by a set of reasons. First of all, because we publish a large amount of data in the book not yet accessible on the online version. And of the same importance is the fact that enclosing the organically connected events of a theatrical season into a closed timeframe is of a great help to the readers who fear getting lost in the unimaginably extensive pool of data. We are convinced that the book and the computer can still live peacefully next to each other, complementing one another. This year’s issue of the Yearbook also has a DVD supplement, which not only repeats the contents of the printed book but also gives a detailed listing of the cast and presents such additional materials to the readers which we could not include in the printed version. The readers are given a sample of our publications and our exhibitions, also presenting some of the events organized by us, which pertain to the past season. In this sense the DVD and the book go hand in hand, yet if someone, for emotional or practical reasons, wishes to keep only one of them, will still get an almost full footprint of a season in which the Hungarian theatre life, despite the abundance in uncertain circumstances, managed to thrive in its usual way. 9
