The Linen Hall Library's Theatre and Performing Arts Archive formally began in 1996 and is now seven years in existence as a staffed collection. This website, including other projects such as the Oral History Archive, have been funded by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The collections are organised according to provenance, for example, by venue, theatre company or playwright. Within each collection, materials are then sorted by type so that all handbills are filed together rather than handbills, programmes, press clippings etc being filed under the production they refer to. The following holdings form the major collections in the archive:

Arts Theatre
The collection consists of materials dating from 1948 to 1984 and includes handbills, programmes, photographs and press clippings.

Charabanc Theatre Company
One of the key donations the archive was built around, this collection is made up of scripts, programmes, handbills, photographs and press clippings.

Chris Hill Theatre Photography
Donated in 2003, this collection of negatives spans 25 years of Northern Irish theatre. Plans to digitise the collection to make it more accessible are underway.

Christina Reid Collection
Donated in 2003, this collection of letters, scripts, posters, programmes, handbills and press clippings offers an intriguing context to Reid's plays.

Lyric Theatre
The Lyric Theatre handed their archive to the Linen Hall Library in 2002. Through programmes, handbills, press clippings and posters this collection documents the Lyric's output since it opened at Ridgeway street in 1968. There is also an extensive collection of photographs.

Rutherford Mayne (Ulster Literary Theatre)
One of the first theatre collections donated to the Linen Hall Library, the Rutherford Mayne Collection in part documents the work of the Ulster Literary Theatre through letters, handbills, programmes, illustrations and scripts.

Unpublished Scripts
Unpublished scripts by George Shiels, Stewart Parker and Thomas Carnduff, among other playwrights, are available for consultation in the archive.