International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

Design by Motley: A Case Study (1980-1996)

The Motley Set and Costume Design Collection

Michael Mullin
Department of English
E-mail motley@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

Winds of Change - New Technology

21st International Congress

Helsinki, 31 August - 6 September 1996

Main Points for Discussion: Acquisition, Cataloguing and Storage, Contextual Research, National and International Exhibition, Dissemination by Slides, Microfiche, Digital Imaging (CD-ROM), and the World-Wide Web.

For the 21st SIBMAS Congress, I propose a practical case study of a major collection of set and costume designs. My presentation will be illustrated by color slides and possibly by a color computer display. The focus will be on practical experience in establishing and disseminating a major set and costume design collection using digital text and images, the Internet, and interactive media.

The Motley Set and Design Collection at the UIUC Library comprises 5,500 items documenting more than 300 productions by the Anglo-America designers "Motley" (Margaret Harris, Sophia Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery). Since I arranged for its acquisition by the University of Illinois in 1980, during the 1980s and early 1990s, it became accessible through slides and microfiche. Research in the form of videotaped interviews with the designers and in printed sources provided a context for each production. It has been open for on-site research since 1986.

When first acquired and catalogued, the Motley collection was the subject of a presentation to SIBMAS in New York in 1982. At that time, SIBMAS delegates urged me to provide for wider access to this unique collection documenting British and American theatre history from 1932 to 1976. Accordingly, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies, I supervised the creation and tour of "Design by Motley," a major exhibition featuring original designs, re-created costumes, set models, and a BBC videotape interview with the designers. From 1989-1990, the exhibition toured ten sites in the United States (including Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Boston Public Library, and the Los Angeles Theatre Center) before it transferred in 1991 to the Royal National Theatre, London.

In 1990, my monograph on the designers, with a selection of 210 slides from the collection, was published In 1992 the complete collection was published on color microfiche. In 1996 my book-length study Design by Motley (256 pp., 70 b/w, 25 color illustrations) was published by the University of Delaware Press. At present, in collaboration with the Follen Corporation, the University of Illinois Library and myself are preparing an interactive, multimedia database of digitized images and textual documentation on CD-ROM. Portions of these images and documentation will be accessible through the World Wide Web (Internet).

21st Congress

URL: http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas96/hels08.html