International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

Theatre Collections and their Practical Contribution to the Actual Stage Production

Dorothy L. Swerdlove (New York)

17. Internationaler SIBMAS-Kongreß / 17ème Congrès International de la SIBMAS / 17th International SIBMAS Congress, 1.-9. September 1988, Mannheim

Bericht / Actes / Documentation. Red.: Liselotte Homering. Mannheim : Städtisches Reiß-Museum, 1990. pp. 132-135

Introduction

The Billy Rose Theatre Collection is one of four divisions - the others are Dance, Music and Recorded Sound - which make up the Performing Arts Research Center of The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. We define "theatre" in the broadest sense of popular entertainment, including movies, radio and television. We acquire books and periodicals in these fields from all over the world, but the bulk of our collection consists of non-book materials that are not available through ordinary trade channels. They make up a unique resource for the theatre practitioner. What follows is a brief rundown of the various categories and their uses.

Scripts and Promptbooks

The Theatre Collection acquires two types of playscripts: the author's script and the promptbook. The author's typescript may be a "clean" script or it may be heavily annotated, with many different drafts. We recently acquired early drafts of several Tennessee Williams scripts that show how the plays developed on the way to their final production. In another example, the Clifford Odets papers contain extensive notes and re-writes.

The division houses many rare copies of the complete scripts for plays and musicals of the 1920's and '30's. Several months ago, the Executive Director of the Paul Green Foundation called from North Carolina, asking us to check our script for Johnny Johnson by Paul Green and Kurt Weill in order to verify the existence of a specific scene in the 1936 première. A production was being planned in Germany, and the producers wanted to be faithful to the original presentation. Similarly, the Houston (Texas) Opera company used an early libretto from our files to mount a new production of Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, restoring lines and lyrics that had been lost in later revisions.

Promptbooks, some dating back to the early 19th century, are also heavily used to check for cuts, revisions and staging ideas, and not just for revivals of the classics. The director of a British production of Annie Get Your Gun studied the promptbooks of nine different productions of the musical.

Whenever a revival is announced, we know that there will be requests for the script from actors preparing for auditions and from established performers who have been offered a role and want to check the script before making up their minds.

Programs

The program is the official record of the play. An individual's position on the credits page - above or below the title, in larger print or in a special box - will influence salary and casting offers in the future. Some years ago, Brian Aherne was invited to perform in Great Britain, but needed proof of his "star" status. Using a copy of a Dear Liar program with his name above the title, he was able to prove to British Actors' Equity that he was, indeed, a star and therefore a unique talent not subject to the usual restrictions on alien actors.

When considering a new show, in addition to consulting the usual theatrical directories, producers often remember a play in which they admired the work of a director or designer or performer. If they cannot recall the individual's name, they can consult the program to refresh their memory. The program is also valuable in preparing revivals of a musical, especially if the director is looking for a fresh approach, because the programs record what songs were dropped or added or moved to different scenes during the try-out period, and sometimes even after opening night. Therefore, the Theatre Collection seeks to acquire programs from previews, regular runs, tours, regional and foreign productions, revivals, etc.

In the United States, many not-for-profit theatre companies list patrons and contributors in their programs, and an enterprising administrator can check these lists for possible financial assistance in mounting future productions. And finally, when retirement looms at the end of a career, the program offers proof of employment for a pension or social security.

Personal Archives: Correspondence, Contracts, Scrapbooks

Gifts of personal archives present an insider's view of the profession. They are sorted and cataloged and indexed to bring out titles of productions as well as the name of the donor and other individuals. In this way, all material on a specific production - correspondence, budgets, rehearsal notes, or whatever - are accessible to users. The Richard Rodgers papers include letters from the composer to his wife with detailed descriptions of productions he was working on out of town. In the Vincent Donehue collection there are director's notes on various problems that arose during rehearsals of The Sound of Music.

The Eugene O'Neill correspondence with critic Brooks Atkinson contains significant glimpses of the playwright's thinking about some of his plays and their staging. The Katharine Cornell collection includes a charming letter from George Bernard Shaw in which he describes his idea of Candida as "something blonde and expansive ... an ideal British Candida" and his surprise at seeing a picture of "a gorgeous dark lady from the cradle of the human race... [perhaps] the southernmost corner of the Garden of Eden ..." Shaw signed himself "Yours, breath bereaved", but nevertheless he stuck to his usual stiff royalty terms for productions of his plays.

Newspaper and Magazine Clippings and Press Releases

The Theatre Collection staff marks, clips and files an average of 400 clippings and press releases every working day, covering personalities, productions, producing organizations and special theatre topics. The most important clippings for our readers are the reviews, which point up the strengths and weaknesses of productions. We collect reviews from Broadway, off- and off-off-Broadway, out-of-town tryouts and tours, regional theatres and festivals, and foreign productions. In addition, there are news items, feature articles and interviews, all giving on-the-spot information which is valuable (although sometimes unwelcome) to those involved with a current or future production.

Whenever a production is announced for stage, film or television that involves the portrayal of actual theatre personalities, our clipping files are in great demand. The current interest in the Group Theatre of the 1930's and their productions is a case in point, as many performers, directors and producers seek to familiarize themselves with the period and the personalities.

Sceney and Costume Designs

Turning now to the visual side of our holdings, we have over 8000 scenery and costume designs and another 4000 blueprints, plans and light plots, accessible by artist's name or production title. They are heavily used by designers and directors seeking practical ideas and inspiration.

For the Chinese language production of The Music Man which was put on in Beijing in 1987, Howard Bay was commissioned to adapt his scenic designs from the original production. When he died unexpectedly during preparation of the new show, others were able to continue the work using the designs that he had donated to us several years earlier. The Jo Mielziner Collection contains preliminary scenery and costume sketches, renderings, plans and elevations, light plots, etc. for over 250 shows, ranging from frothy musicals to John Gielgud's Hamlet. From time to time, we are authorized by the Mielziner Estate to make copies of the plans for use in revivals as far away as Africa.

Designer Boris Aronson found his source material for the cold, impersonal setting of the musical Company in the Theatre Collection itself, with its steel and glass reading room, fluorescent ceiling lights, and multiple reflections. He described it as a "hospital for books" rather than a warm and intimate place for study. Not a very flattering description, alas, but at least we provided inspiration.

Prints and Photographs, Posters

The photographs in our collections show how the designers' ideas were translated into actual costumes and scenery. The producers of Follies in London sent their designer to New York to study pictures of actual Ziegfeld Follies costumes. In addition, a researcher looked through photographs of New York theatres of the period for possible use as a scenic effect.

In many instances, we have photographs of several different productions of a play or musical. A designer or director can see not only what the Broadway production looked like, but also how it was mounted in other theatres with smaller stages and limited budgets.

Film stills are another source of ideas for background and costumes of various periods. The costume designer for the Chinese revival of The Music Man, mentioned earlier, studied photographs of the movie version to get ideas for the new show.

Actors often study photographs of earlier productions to get a feel for the characters they will be playing or, in the case of a historical drama, to get a sense of the costumes of the period and how performers moved in them. We have a large collection of 18th and 19th century prints, especially costume plates, including many hand-colored prints from British and French theatre.

Photographs and posters are also used as illustrations in souvenir programs or in advertisements in newspapers and on television. For contemporary plays, poster reproductions are often used as set decoration if the scene is a modern apartment.

Video recordings

Since the early 1970's, the Theatre on Film and Tape program (TOFT) has videotaped live stage productions for archival purposes, providing an accurate record of the work of writers and composers, directors, designers and performers. Although limited by a small budget, the TOFT archive has managed to acquire over 1200 shows and interviews and documentaries on theatre-related subjects.

The theatrical community has found TOFT to be an invaluable tool both in preparing performances and in critiquing the work after it has been performed. Workshop performances are studied on the way to large-scale productions and, conversely, a Broadway production may be viewed in preparation for an off-Broadway or regional theatre revival.

Actors preparing for auditions or getting ready to enter a touring company or to replace a member of the original cast are among the most enthusiastic TOFT users. After a taping, many come in to view their own performances. Often it is the first opportunity they have had to see themselves on stage. Foreign professionals have used the archive to view a specific production or to watch brief scenes from several shows. A recent visitor was a Russian writer who is translating the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide for a production in Moscow. The videotape was of enormous assistance to her in clarifying the overlapping action of several scenes.

Other Contributions

The theatrical profession utilizes the Theatre Collection in many ways. A theatre in Michigan was being pressured by local authorities to cancel a play because of its satirical view of religion. We sent copies of articles on stage censorship to the producers to bolster their case. In another instance, we provided materials to the League of Resident Theatres in connection with an arbitration proceeding. On the international front, on the eve of the 1986 Theater of Nations Festival in Baltimore, produced under the auspices of the International Theatre Institute, we supplied information documenting the importance of a Bulgarian troupe that was having difficulty obtaining a visa from the State Department. Each year we perform a similar service, when necessary, for foreign groups invited to appear at the Pepsico Summerfare Festival in Purchase, New York.

Summing Up

Since its inception in 1931, the Theatre Collection has tried to serve the needs of a public that includes theatre professionals of all kinds and at all stages in their careers, scholars and students, researchers and writers, and the "theatre buff" who makes up the enthusiastic audience. We like to think of ourselves as a small but significant contributor to the glories of the stage, and of the various citations that we have received over the years, we are especially proud of the Tony Award, Broadway's highest accolade, which was presented to the division in 1956 for 25 years of "distinguished service to the theatre".

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