Collection Descriptions
Detail of working plot for Donald Wolfit's production of King Lear, 1950.
Donald Wolfit Papers
There are currently no online finding aids for the following collections, but inventories are available for most of these collections.
Donald Albery (1914-1988) Theater Records
Collection Dates: 1919-1978 (bulk 1941-1978)
Size: 132.5 linear feet
Access: working inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Sir Donald Arthur Rolleston Albery, British producer and theatre and ballet executive, joined the Wyndham Theatres Limited in 1932 at age 18 as third assistant in the box office of the New Theatre. By 1941 he was General Manager of the Wyndham Theatres Limited, becoming Managing Director in 1950. He was also General Manager of the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company from 1941 to 1945, and Managing Director of Piccadilly Theatre Limited from 1960.
Between 1953 and 1978 Albery presented 119 plays in his four theatres -- the Criterion, Wyndham's Theatre, the New Theatre (now named the Albery), and the Piccadilly -- and 79 additional plays outside the Wyndham's Theatres Limited group. His first production was Graham Greene's first play, The Living Room (1953).
Consisting of documents purchased by the Ransom Center in June 1982, the Albery records provide a comprehensive portrait of Albery's involvement with post-war British theater. Materials include correspondence, photographs, audition notes, biographical information on actors, Lord Chamberlain's licenses, scripts, prompt copies, tapes, minutes of meetings, published books and journals, lighting and sound plots, set diagrams, details of costume and scenery, stage managers' reports, musical scores, posters, programs, and news clippings. Financial records include profit and loss statements, box office receipts, records of investments, treasury statements, and details of royalties and film rights.
Albery's activities with professional organizations such as the Society of West End Theatre Managers (SWETM), the Theatres' National Committee (TNC), and the Actors' Benevolent Fund, are recorded in minutes of executive and general meetings for SWETM (1968-1976), minutes for TNC (1961-1977) and associated reports, correspondence, and notes. His involvement as founding member and director of Anglia Television, a regional company established as a commercial alternative to the BBC, is similarly documented by minutes of meetings, balance sheets, reports, correspondence, and various publications.
Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) Collection
Size: ca. 25 linear feet
Access: A Catalogue of the Maxwell Anderson Collection at the University of Texas, compiled by Laurence G. Avery, was published by the Ransom Center in 1968. All of Anderson's published works are described in full, and there is an index of persons represented in the correspondence file. In addition to the Avery catalog, nearly all of the collection is also accessible via the Center's card catalog.
Contact: Associate Librarian
The archives of Maxwell Anderson, the American playwright, were purchased from Mrs. Anderson in 1961. Included are published and unpublished manuscript materials for plays, poems, and essays; letters, diaries, and scrapbooks; and letters written to Anderson. The play manuscripts are in several drafts and are extensively revised. In July 1973, 16 additional cartons of Anderson's papers were received from Mrs. Anderson that include manuscript materials for plays, stories, scenarios, librettos, and poems; letters from Anderson to his third wife, Gilda; letters to Gertrude, his second wife; letters to Anderson from his first wife, Margaret; and letters from Anderson's parents. Also present are business correspondence, financial papers, personal memorabilia, family photographs, and books from Anderson's library -- all inscribed to Anderson or working copies with his annotations.
Wilson Barrett (1846-1904) Collection
Collection Dates: 1865-1934 (bulk 1871-1904)
Size/Access: The collection is divided evenly between Manuscripts
(7.6 linear feet, accessible via the card catalog) and Performing Arts (7.5
linear feet).
Contact: Performing Arts staff and Associate Librarian
Published Information: Brokaw, John W. "Wilson Barrett's Papers: A Theatrical Legacy." The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, New Series no. 7 (1974): 10-20.
Thomas, James. "Wilson Barrett's New School 'Othello.'" The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, New Series no. 22 (1983): 66-87.
The collection of Wilson Barrett, English actor, dramatist, and producer, includes agreements for the production of plays in Europe, the United States, and South Africa; photographs of Barrett in his various acting roles; financial ledger books showing expenses and income for tours dating from 1872 to 1904; the original manuscripts of three plays written by Barrett (The Sign of the Cross, The Manxman, and Quo Vadis), and scene renderings. The correspondence files date from 1852 to 1904 and include letters to Barrett from authors, performers, and other public figures such as Charles Kean, Sir Henry Irving, Matthew Arnold, Rudyard Kipling, Bret Harte, Eugene Field, Charles Read, John Ruskin, and Charles L. Dodgson. There are also letters from Barrett to members of his family.
The Black Crook Collection
Collection Dates: 1853-1929
Size: 2.5 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
From its first performance on Sept. 12, 1866, at Niblo's Theatre in New York, The Black Crook became one of the first successful musicals in the United States. The script from a Faustian melodrama, songs by assorted composers, and the services of a stranded Parisian ballet troupe were combined with elaborate sets and costumes to create a spectacle that spawned 15 subsequent Broadway revivals and numerous touring productions. The Black Crook's scandalously dressed dancers, who were the first to perform the Can-Can on an American stage, delighted and shocked audiences. After attending a performance of The Black Crook in New York, Mark Twain, in a March 3, 1868 column in Alta, California, wrote that the musical "debauched many a pure mind." The Black Crook Collection contains books, sheet music, playbills, programs, clippings, drawings, and photographs related to the musical.
The Museum of the City of New York also holds a Black Crook collection.
Card Photograph Collection
Collection Dates: 1860-1920 (bulk 1890-1910)
Size: 73.6 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
This collection contains photographic images of performers, primarily mounted on preprinted card stock, in both cabinet card and carte-de-visite format. Included are albumen prints, as well as silver gelatin prints, along with embossed mounts, unmounted prints, and a few hand-tinted prints. Performers represented are figures from the legitimate theatre, concert stage, and popular entertainment.
Gordon Conway (1894-1956) Costume Design Collection
Collection Dates: 1916-1936
Size: 61 linear feet
Access: searchable database (available to onsite researchers only)
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Gordon Conway, costume designer for musical revues, musical comedy, and the early film industry, maintained design studios in London and in Paris. Her career encompassed fashion design and editorial cartooning as well as work for performance. The Conway collection includes original art; photographs of family, friends, and productions; and diaries, datebooks and numerous scrapbooks. More than sixty shows are represented.
Costume and Scenic Design Collection
Collection Dates: 1800-1970 (bulk 1840-1950)
Size: ca. 32 linear feet
Access: working inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: W. H. Crain Costume and Scenic Design Collection
This collection contains original renderings and design resources, including research books, prints, and bound volumes of period and national costumes.
Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) Collection
Collection Dates: 1901-1943
Size: ca. 13 linear feet
Access: Nearly all of the collection is accessible via the Center's card catalog.
Contact: Associate Librarian
The archives of Edward Gordon Craig, the English actor, stage designer, and producer, were purchased from his son Edward Anthony Craig in October 1969. Except for that portion of his collection sold by Craig in 1957 to the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal in Paris and materials given or sold during his lifetime, the archives contain all of Craig's remaining papers, from his earliest work in the theater until his death.
The collection consists of daybooks and notebooks (1901-1943) recording Craig's daily activities, opinions, and ideas about theater productions and a myriad of other projects; manuscript notebooks for a projected book on Isadora Duncan; research notes, the original manuscript, and proofs of Craig's book, Ellen Terry and Her Secret Self; and manuscript notes and typescript for an unpublished work entitled Tritons and Minnows.
Separate folders of manuscripts and printed materials document Craig's visit to the 1933 Volta Congress on theater and drama in Rome; his visit to Moscow in 1935; the establishment of his School for the Art of the Theater in London in 1904 and at the Arena Goldoni in Florence (1908-1914); correspondence and business papers relating to the publication of The Mask (1906-1928); and an unpublished manuscript by Maurice Magnus entitled Gordon Craig and His Art (1907).
The correspondence files include letters from Craig to his son Edward, to his sister Edith, and to Martin Fallas Shaw. Other letters include those to Sir Ashley Clarke, William H. Downing, Isadora Duncan, Glenn Hughes, Maurice Magnus, Frans Mijnssen, Rolfe A. Scott-James, Konstantin S. Stanislavski, and Ellen Terry.
W. H. Crain (1917-1998) Barnum & Bailey Circus Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1805-1937 (bulk 1886-1902)
Size: 1.26 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The W. H. Crain Barnum & Bailey Circus Collection consists largely of correspondence and legal documents concerning P. T. Barnum, James A. Bailey, and Joseph T. McCaddon and their business dealings. Notably present are business letters from Barnum, legal documents, manuscript calculations, and endorsed bank checks written during Barnum and Bailey's partnership agreement, 1887-1888.
Much of the information in this collection relates to Bailey and includes biographical notes and clippings, correspondence, various legal and financial documents concerning his property and estate, and other ventures, such as his purchase of Cooper's share of Forepaugh's Show, 1890-1892.
Joseph T. McCaddon, Bailey's brother-in-law and business partner, is also represented in the collection by correspondence, typed and manuscript notes for a proposed Wild West Show, and a marriage certificate among other items.
Also present in the collection are photographs of Bailey and his wife Ruth, Barnum and his wife Nancy, various members of the McCaddon family, as well as images of circus people, parades, equipment, and tent shows. A few route cards, playbills, and programs complete the collection. The collection has not yet been cataloged, and the current arrangement of the papers follows, to some extent, the original auction lot numbers.
Dance Collection
Collection Dates: 1827-1991 (bulk 1910-1960)
Size: 49.56 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The bulk of the Dance Collection comprises publicity and production photographs, prints, programs, clippings, and costumes pertaining to 2,000 dancers and choregraphers (1800s-1900s) and 4,000 U.S. and European dance companies (1790s-1970s). Coverage varies, but holdings are extensive for Ruth St. Denis, Kay Lenz, Mary Wigman, Katherine Litz, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (1911-1962), Sadler's Wells Ballet Co. (1942-1945), and the Marquis de Cuevas dance company (1940s-1970s). The collection also includes instruction manuals and assorted publicity material related to square dance and folk dance, and a few costumes.
Robert De Niro (1943- ) Personal Effects
Collection Dates: 1967-2005
Size: Approximately 220 items
Access: Item-level descriptions are available in a searchable database.
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The American actor, producer, and director Robert De Niro (born 1943) is one of the most respected actors of his generation. The Robert De Niro Personal Effects, 1967-2005, consist of approximately 220 items that were personally used by or given to De Niro, but were not utilized in a film and do not represent character development onscreen. Forty-four motion pictures and two theater productions are represented; also included are several items from unidentified productions, as well as a handful of purely personal objects with no apparent connection to a film or theater production.
The bulk of the collection consists of custom-made T-shirts, crew jackets, and baseball caps on which the name of the film, or the studio that produced the film, is embroidered or printed. Also present are numerous "wrap gifts" presented after the completion of a film, such as the engraved key chain given to De Niro after the filming of Casino (1995). The model of De Niro's character Don Lino in Shark Tale (2004), used by Jeffrey Katzenberg to pitch the film to De Niro, is located in this collection.
The Robert De Niro Personal Effects were acquired between 2006 and 2008, along with De Niro's personal papers, moving image materials, and costumes and props, which are housed and described separately.
Edith Evans (1888-1976) Papers
Collection Dates: 1893-1976 (bulk 1912-1956)
Size: 11 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: The collection of Evans' British biographer Henry Hurford Janes contains correspondence, programs, clippings, photographs, and other materials related to Evans; legal correspondence and documents regarding Janes' legal dispute with Bryan Forbes, 1976-1977; and Janes' clippings and correspondence concerning ENSA.
One of the finest actresses of her time, Edith Evans began her career as a milliner in London before making her first stage appearance as an amateur under William Poel's direction. Subsequently she toured with Ellen Terry as a professional actress. She joined the Old Vic Company for the 1925-26 season where her roles included Portia, Rosalind, Beatrice, and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Outstanding parts in her distinguished stage and film career were in The Way of the World (1924), The Chalk Garden (1964), and The Whisperers (1967); she portrayed her most famous role, Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, on stage in 1939 and on film in 1952. In 1946 she was made D.B.E. Evans gave her last stage performance at the age of 85 in a one-woman show at the Haymarket, "Edith Evans ... and Friends."
The bulk of the Dame Edith Evans Papers consists of correspondence, clippings, scrapbooks, and performance-related materials such as rehearsal copies of playscripts. The papers are arranged in three series: I. Correspondence, 1910-1976, II. Theater Papers, 1899-1976, and III. Miscellaneous, 1893-1976.
The Correspondence series consists of incoming correspondence from Evan's husband, Guy Booth, her parents, and from Margot Asquith, Enid Bagnold, Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Katharine Hepburn, George Moore, Terence Rattigan, George Bernard Shaw, Edith Sitwell, Ellen Terry, Sybil Thorndike, and Thornton Wilder, among others.
The Theater Papers series is divided into four subseries. Subseries A. Performance Texts and Works, 1937-1973, contains marked rehearsal copies, presentation copies, and typescripts for stage and film projects, poems, radio broadcasts, and works by Evans. The Publicity Materials subseries, 1899-1976, consists chiefly of photographs, programs, clippings, and scrapbooks of press cuttings. Nearly all of these materials pertain to performances by Evans. Subseries C. Administrative and Financial Records, 1920-1971, includes weekly financial summaries for The Chalk Garden and The Millionairess as well as contracts and lists of tour dates and production personnel for other productions. The Sponsorship of Others subseries, 1952-1968, contains materials related to Evans' charitable activities, nearly all of which supported theater professionals.
The Miscellaneous Series includes papers of the Evans and Booth families, Evans' honorary degrees, and other materials collected by Evans. Although the material in this series is not directly related to Evan's work as an actor, much of it is of a theatrical nature, e.g., theater programs for performances attended by Evans.
Bob Golby (b. 1901) Collection
Collection Dates: 1931-1977
Size: ca. 60.0 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
This collection documents Golby's work as a New York theater photographer, including Broadway stagings of plays, theater personalities, as well as dance and opera performances. The collection is arranged in two series, I. Photographs, 1931-1977, and II. Papers, 1936-1966. The theater photographs in Series I document some 350 plays staged mainly in New York City, including premiere productions, revivals, and classics. Most of the photographs are 5 x 7" prints; a small number of 2 x 3" proof prints are also present, as well as some larger prints (8 x 10", 11 x 14", and a group of 12 x 13" prints mounted to 16 x 20"). Series II includes a few letters and notes by Golby, a small collection of programs, and tearsheets and clippings either about Golby or that include published versions of his photographs.
German Plays Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1870-ca. 1910 (bulk 1875-1900)
Size: 47 document boxes (19.74 linear feet)
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: Conrad Seidemann Collection of German Plays
The German Plays Collection documents the achievements of the German stage from the pre-unification period to the golden age of middlebrow amusement and diversion during the first decade of the twentieth century. For the most part, the plays in this collection have no literary pretensions, for they served as vehicles for a theater that was still a medium of mass entertainment. The collection consists of printed plays, actors' sides, theatrical catalogs, and song books. Most material is in German.
The Harry Ransom Center's collection of German plays rivals in its extensiveness similar archives in both the United States and Germany, for it contains the texts of plays which were intended for creating a production. For many plays, scholars will find not only complete scripts, but also "sides" provided to individual actors.
A number of well known German authors are well represented in the collection, including Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, Roderich Benedix, Ludwig Angely, David Kalisch, Adolph L'Arronge, Julius Rosen, Gustav von Moser, Franz von Schönthan and his collaborators, Oskar Blumenthal, Gustav Kadelburg, Carl Laufs, Oskar Walther, and Leo Stein.
Harry Houdini (1874-1926) Collection
Collection Dates: 1837-1972 (bulk 1895-1926)
Size: 25 linear feet
Access: working inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Published Information: Meikle, Jeffrey L. "'Over There': Arthur Conan Doyle and Spiritualism." The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, New Series no.8 (1974): 22-37.
Parts of the Harry Houdini Collection pertain to the numerous magicians with whom Houdini cultivated personal relationships, but the focus of this collection is the life and career of Houdini himself. Manuscript material in the collection includes Houdini's correspondence with magicians and writers; his letters to his wife Bess, 1890s-1926; manuscript notes and revisions for A Magician among the Spirits (1924), along with Houdini's annotated printed copy; the correspondence of A. M. Wilson, editor of The Sphinx, 1905-1923; and James Northcote correspondence. Houdini's films are represented by the script for The Master Mystery (1918), news clippings and a press kit for The Man from Beyond (1922), and other publicity photographs. His interest in spiritualism is documented by a newspaper clipping file on spiritualism, manuscript notebooks on spiritualism and theater by R.[alph] E.[vans], 1900-1920, and history of magic scrapbooks, 1837-1910.
Magicians Collection
Collection Dates: 1750-1920
Size: 30 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The Magicians Collection contains correspondence, clippings, photographs, and other publicity materials (including 2,000 posters) pertaining to magicians and the history of magic. Approximately 3,000 individuals are represented, among them Professor Anderson, T. Nelson Downs, Robert Evans, Robert Houdin, Harry Kellar, Augustus Rapp, Edwin Fay Rice, William Robinson, and Chung Ling Soo.
Stanley Marcus (1905-2002) Collection of Sicilian Marionettes
Collection Dates: ca. 1850, ca. 1960
Size: 60 marionettes, 1 rolled item
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Published Information: Wells, Maria Xenia Zevelechi. "The Stanley Marcus Sicilian
Marionettes and Related Books." The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at
Austin 23, nos. 2/3 (1993): 35-42. Wells, Maria Xenia Zevelechi. "Paladins of Sicily:
The Pupi of Stanley Marcus' Collection." FMR 15, no. 77 (1995): 61-80.
The Stanley Marcus Collection of Sicilian Marionettes, ca. 1850, ca. 1960, consists of sixty marionettes and a backdrop curtain. The marionettes, which were originally purchased by the entrepreneur Stanley Marcus in 1960, form a troupe of characters from the Orlando Furioso story cycle. They are arranged into three groups (Christians, pagans, animals). Among the characters represented are Charlemagne, Orlando, various Frankish knights, Moors, princesses and other female characters, horses, demons, dogs, and mythical creatures. Completing the collection is a mid-nineteenth century backdrop curtain (purchased separately) for a Sicilian marionette theater.
The marionette tradition in Sicily began in the 1850s when Sicilian wood carvers were inspired by Italian versions of Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso, a legend that emerged (with vast embellishment) from the eighth century life of Roland, one of Charlemagne's knights. These plays emphasized chivalry and swashbuckling adventure, and dramatized the conflict between Christianity and Islam. In the marionette theaters of Sicily, the stories became standardized and were a highly popular entertainment until displaced by television, film, and other mass media. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the tradition of these marionettes was revived with performances in Sicily, and even television was used as a means of continuing this popular tradition.
The marionettes are operated with a wooden-handled metal rod extending from the crown of the head on human figures, and from the center of the back on animal figures, a technique that dates to the Roman empire. A second rod moves the primary arm (the sword hand for warriors), and a string moves the secondary arm. The jointed legs move freely, and are controlled by manipulating the body through the main rod. The size of the marionette denotes rank: primary characters stand four to five feet in height, secondary characters, about three feet. The armor on warriors can weigh up to forty pounds. Each marionette is stored hanging vertically from its rod.
The Museo internazionale delle marionette Antonio Pasqualino in Palermo has a large collection of marionettes that have been recovered from various puppeteers and private owners.
Steve Martin (1945- ) Papers
Collection Dates: 1980-1990
Size: ca. 2.5 linear feet
Access: A printed list is available for two thirds of the collection.
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The Steve Martin papers encompass manuscripts, drafts, and script versions of Depression, L.A. Story, My Blue Heaven, Roxanne, and Three Caballeros; a scrapbook from the U.S.S. Wisconsin Operation Desert Shield Tour; drafts of presentations and tributes; a cassette tape of Pennies From Heaven radio broadcast; and award certificates, publicity photographs, stationery, and clippings.
Arthur Miller (1915-2005) Papers
Collection Dates: 1935-1953
Size: ca. 37 linear feet
Access: A box is available for the 1983 accession; the 1961 and 1962 accessions are accessible via the Center's card catalog.
Contact: Associate Librarian
Arthur Miller, the American playwright, presented a portion of his archives to the Ransom Center in 1961 and 1962. A second portion was donated in 1983. Manuscript materials for thirty-four separately titled works trace Miller's career from his first play, They Too Arise, written in 1935 at the University of Michigan, through his successful Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953). Other works represented in the collection include After the Fall, All My Sons, Fame, From under the Sea, The Golden Years, The Half-Bridge, The Hook, I Don't Need You Any More, A Memory of Two Mondays, The Misfits, and A View from the Bridge. Many of the typescripts contain the author's manuscript corrections, unpublished dialogue, notes on the writing of the plays, and comments about their production.
For Death of a Salesman and The Crucible there are notebooks containing the author's first notes on the stories, early sketches of dialogue, research findings, and outlines of plot and action. The original draft, heavily revised, of Miller's novel Focus is present along with the original manuscript of an unpublished novel entitled The Man Who Had All the Luck.
Minstrel Show Collection
Collection Dates: 1831-1959 (bulk 1860-1940)
Size: 29.25 linear feet (original inventory created in 1999); 1.68 linear
feet (2008 addition)
Access: archival inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The Minstrel Show Collection contains 4,000 items documenting the form of entertainment known as the minstrel show and, to a much lesser extent, other entertainments that used blackface makeup. The collection is organized into six series: I. Minstrel Show Companies and Performers, 1831-1959, II. Playbills and Programs, 1847-1914, III. Scrapbooks, 1835-1927, IV. Printed Music, 1834-1934, V. Songsters, Jokesters, and Miscellaneous Booklets, 1833-1908, and VI. Miscellaneous, 1858-1931.
The Companies and Performers series comprises the bulk of the collection and contains photographs, prints, letters, sheet music, clippings, programs, playbills, scrapbook leaves, and a small number of tintypes for over 700 minstrel show companies and performers. This series also includes photographs of motion picture actors and variety performers from the 1920s and 1930s who utilized blackface makeup in their routines, as well as female impersonators and banjoists.
Series II contains playbills and programs, mostly for New York City theaters. The Scrapbooks series contains photographs and clippings mounted in two intact scrapbooks, one disbound scrapbook, and about 50 loose scrapbook leaves. The bulk of the Printed Music series comprises sheet music for ca. 500 songs, most of which were popularized by white minstrel show performers. The Songsters, Jokesters, and Miscellaneous Booklets series is divided into two subseries: A. Songsters, 1833-1883, nd, and B. Jokesters and Miscellaneous Booklets, 1870-1908, nd. The Songsters subseries comprises about 240 booklets of lyrics of songs which were popularized by comedians and minstrel show performers. The Jokesters and Miscellaneous Booklets subseries contains several booklets with the texts of jokes used in minstrel shows as well as a dozen booklets on miscellaneous topics, such as books of sayings, the texts of speeches, and acting manuals. The Miscellaneous series contains letters, programs, clippings, and prints pertaining to the banjo, female minstrels, McDonough's Opera House in Middletown, Conn., and other topics.
Note: This description does not make reference to the 2008 addition.
New Faces Records
Collection Dates: 1950s-1980s
Size: 0.42 linear feet
Access: At present, the description below serves as the inventory.
Contact: Associate Librarian
Related Materials: The papers of the producers Carroll and Harris Masterson (located in Performing Arts) include a budget, contracts, scripts, and other materials for New Faces of 1962.
The archive of the musical revue New Faces consists of scripts for sketches, along with related materials. These scripts from the early 1950s present comedic writing by Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Peter DeVries, and Paul Lynde. Also present are scenes and songs by Arthur Siegel, Sheldon Harnick, Ronny Graham, June Carrol, Francis Lemarque, Alan Melville, Herbert Farjeon, and Michael Brown. Though the series' original producer, Leonard Sillman, made arrangements to extend his production rights into the 1970s and early 1980s, two letters requesting such extensions, addressed to and signed by Mel Brooks and Peter DeVries, are included in this archive. In addition to scripts, the archive includes stage manager's holograph cue notes and copies of charcoal sketches, "Highlights of New Faces Play of the Week," for Nov. 20 and 21, 1960.
Opera Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1800s-1990 (bulk 1880-1950)
Size: 51.56 linear feet
Access: working inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The bulk of the Opera Collection consists of biographical holdings on operatic performers from the 1880s through the 1950s. The careers of approximately 1,000 performers from this period are documented with photographs, clippings, prints, programs, and playbills. The collection also includes production photographs relating to operatic works produced for the American stage, and materials documenting the history of prominent opera companies in the United States, as well as a selection of European companies.
Pantomime Collection
Collection Dates: 1793-1977 (bulk 1860-1910)
Size: 8.76 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The Pantomime Collection comprises ca. 400 items relating to pantomime on the English stage, with a strong concentration on nineteenth century productions. Most of the collection was purchased from Motley Books Limited, and these materials are arranged by catalog numbers as assigned by the dealer. The Motley materials are supplemented by twenty-five manuscript scores for pantomimes produced in the provinces of Britain.
The Motley Books portion of the collection consists predominantly of printed scripts, programs, and souvenir programs for numerous pantomimes, 1793-1952. There are also eight holograph manuscript pantomime scenes and play scripts (1811-1881), three typescripts (1910-1946), and one promptbook with holograph notes (1874). The remaining Motley items include seven pantomime annuals (1886-1949), seven books on the history of pantomime (1863-1977), three original water colors of characters in Little Red Riding Hood (1882), as well as four sheet music covers (ca. 1890), one book of music, and one book of songs (1890s).
The twenty-five pantomime scores consist of manuscript music which, in most instances, is bound with sheet music. The pantomimes were produced at theaters in Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, or Manchester between 1907 and 1931.
Poster Collection
Collection Dates: 1890-1997
Size: ca. 6 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The bulk of the Poster Collection consists of late nineteenth and early twentieth century lithographs for American theater productions. Lobby cards and posters, ca. 1950-1980, form the balance of the collection.
Production Photographs Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1800-1998 (bulk 1900-1965)
Size: 26.1 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
This collection contains publicity photographs for 1,600 productions, chiefly in New York. The bulk of the collection consists of 11 x 14" photographs (1895-1930), many by White Studio, and 8 x 10" production photographs (ca. 1950-1970).
The Billy Rose Theater Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts staff holds collections of White Studio and Vandamm Studio photographs.
Ada Rehan (1857-1916) and Augustin Daly (1838-1899) Collection
Collection Dates: 1884-1898
Size: 1.68 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The Ada Rehan and Augustin Daly Collection is made up of published works, promptbooks, sides, and scrapbook materials about or related to Rehan and Daly, 1884-1898.
The collection is composed chiefly of eighteen official Augustin Daly company promptbooks and actor's sides, ca. 1884-1898. Eleven of these were used by the actress Ada Rehan, six seem to have been used by the chief prompter, and one bound copy bears director Augustin Daly's name, indicating that it may have been his own copy. These exist as holograph, typescript, and printed works, most of which are annotated and often with bound in additional notations, directions, and stage settings. One contains four miniature watercolors, including two of Ada Rehan.
Also present are two custom bound volumes containing Mr. Daly's arrangements of privately printed plays issued between 1887 and 1893, two copies of a biography of Miss Rehan by William Winter, as well as A Portfolio of Players, all of which contain photogravures of performers and scenes. A scrapbook documents Mr. Daly's and Miss Rehan's London engagement in 1896. A separate loose newspaper clipping and photograph may have come from the scrapbook.
Elmer Rice (1892-1967) Collection
Size: ca. 48 linear feet
Access: Donald Gene Bristow's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Elmer Rice Collection at the University of Texas (dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1984) serves as the finding aid.
Contact: Associate Librarian
The collection contains virtually all of the late playwright's personal papers: manuscripts for 60 plays, acting drafts, prompt books, and translations of plays; Rice's business and personal correspondence; photographs and theater programs; royalty statements and contracts; Rice's correspondence related to his affairs with the American Civil Liberties Union; a collection of letters to Bertram Bloch and Frank Harris; Rice's notebooks, appointment books, and scrapbooks. The bulk of the collection was purchased in 1968 from the estate of Elmer Rice.
Sarah Rollitts Papers
Collection Dates: 1939-1982 (bulk 1942-1975)
Size: 0.84 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Sarah Rollitts was literary and playwright agent for Columbia Artists, Inc. from 1939 to 1946, when she went independent as the New York office of Salkow Agency (Los Angeles).
The Sarah Rollitts Papers contain the literary agent's letters received from her clients, prospects, publishers, and film and television studios. Among the correspondents represented in the papers are Tallulah Bankhead, Vicki Baum, Ingmar Bergman, Marlon Brando, Abe Burrows, Lenore Coffee, Joan Crawford, Lester Cohen, Bette Davis, William and Charlotte Dieterle, Norman Felton, Janet Flanner, Errol Flynn, Ruth Gordon, Tyrone Guthrie, Lillian Hellman, Katherine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Garson Kanin, George S. Kaufman, Elia Kazan, Gene Kelly, Ernest Lehman, Sinclair Lewis, Anita Loos, Christopher Morley, Clifford Odets, Laurence Olivier, Mary Pickford, Otto Preminger, Halsey Raines, Nancy Wilson Ross, Bertrand Russell, Dore Schary, Peter Sellers, Beatrice Straight, Booth Tarkington, Kurt Weill, Orson Welles, Cornel Wilde, and Thornton Wilder. Also present are contracts and agreements, memoranda, notes, newspaper and magazine clippings, press releases, programs, and book jackets; and copies of ink, wash, and crayon sketches by Angna Entero.
W. H. Crain purchased the collection and placed it on loan at U.T., where it became a gift upon Crain's death in 1998. Rollitts kept the material in her files of "autograph" interest and shredded many of her own personal letters before selling the collection.
Ann Savage (1921-2008) Costumes for My Winnipeg
Collection Dates: ca. 1940s-ca. 1980s
Size: 16 items
Access: Item-level descriptions are available in a searchable database.
Contact: Performing Arts staff
The American film and television actress Ann Savage was best known for her work in the film noir classic Detour (1945) and in Hollywood B-movies in the 1940s. The Ann Savage Costumes for My Winnipeg, ca. 1940s-ca. 1980s, consist of sixteen items worn in My Winnipeg (2007), her last onscreen appearance. All sixteen items were part of Savage's personal wardrobe, and Savage rented them to the production. Of particular note is a beige shirtwaist style silk dress by Adele Simpson, one of Savage's preferred designers. The simplicity of the design is complemented with pleated details, a lively Art Deco-like repeated pattern, and a front button closure consisting of faceted, gold tone glass bead buttons. It is a good example of the practical, yet beautiful and polished clothing Simpson designed for women with active, and often public, lives.
The Ann Savage costumes were acquired in 2008 and 2009. Her personal and professional papers are located in the Ransom Center's Film Collection.
Ronald Searle (1920- ) Collection
Collection Dates: 1949-1961
Size: over 500 items
Access: item-level list
Contact: Art Collection
The Ronald Searle Collection consists of over 500 items by Searle. The works include 438 pen and ink drawings and 80 sketchbooks. The collection provides a complete picture of English theatrical entertainment in the 1950s. The drawings are caricatures of theatre productions, and some of individuals, and the drawings not contained in the sketchbooks are for the theatre columns of Punch. Most of the works are signed or initialed by the artist.
Conrad Seidemann Collection of German Plays
Collection Dates: ca. 1890-ca. 1920
Size: 102 boxes, 10 bound volumes (47.50 linear feet)
Access: A box list is available for 72 boxes (30.24 linear feet); a small
portion of the remaining 17.26 linear feet is listed in a draft preliminary
inventory.
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: German Plays Collection
Conrad Seidemann was director of the Bush Temple Theater in Chicago on North Clark and Chicago Avenue from 1917 to 1923. At the time he began his directorship, the German language theater was in decline due to assimilation, competition from the cinema, and anti-German sentiment as a result of World War I. Seidemann, who may have come to Chicago from the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, acquired his collection of German language plays from the holdings of earlier theaters in New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, and even Germany, presumably after those theaters had gone out of business.
The collection includes the classic dramas of Goethe and Schiller; the serious drama of Grillparzer, Kleist, and others; and the new naturalistic dramas, such as those by Sudermann, Hauptmann, and Ibsen. However, the majority of the collection consists of lighter fare, such as Lustspiel (comedy), Posse (farcical comedy), Schwank (farce), and Volksstucke. Many of the comic dramas, such as Posse, included songs. In addition, about fifteen percent of the collection consists of scores and sides for operettas such as Offenbach's Jeanne qui pleure et Jean qui rit (translated as Die Hanni weint, der Hansi lacht).
John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1880-1969 (bulk 1910-1930)
Size: 3 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Composer and bandmaster John Philip Sousa was appointed director of the U.S. Marine Band on October 1, 1880. After 12 years with the Marine Band, Sousa retired to lead his own civilian concert band in 1892, which he conducted until his death in 1932. Sousa, known as the "March King," composed over 120 marches as well as numerous operettas, suites, waltzes, instrumental solo pieces, and vocal works. While he first received acclaim in military band circles with his 1886 march "The Gladiator," he is perhaps best known for his 1896 march "The Stars and Stripes Forever" which was designated as the national march of the United States on December 10, 1987.
The John Philip Sousa Collection contains numerous photographs of Sousa, his bands, and other incarnations of the U.S. Marine Band, as well as bound volumes of Sousa band correspondence (1911-1931) and a band uniform worn by Sousa.
Extensive Sousa archives are on deposit at the Library of Congress Music Division, the U.S. Marine Band, and the Sousa Archives for Band Research at the University of Illinois.
Theater Biography Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1750-1970 (bulk 1820-1950)
Size: ca. 300 linear feet
Access: A working inventory is available, but it does not include a complete name list. Separate lists are available for John Hare, Henry Irving (music scores only), Anna Cora Mowatt, John E. Owens, Hesketh Pearson (see also Hesketh Pearson Papers), and Ellen Terry.
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: Most manuscripts from the Bio File are part of a separate collection called Theatre Arts Manuscripts.
The massive Theater Biography Collection (the "Bio File") consists of materials relating to over 5,000 British and American dramatic and variety performers. Although individuals are primarily represented by publicity material such as photographs, prints, playbills, programs, and posters, the collection also contains letters, legal documents, scrapbooks, paintings and drawings, sheet music, books and pamphlets, and other memorabilia. Coverage ranges from a single piece to hundreds of items. A smaller section includes playwrights, critics, managers, designers, and other production personnel. The following individuals are well-represented in this collection: members of the Barrymore family (Ethel, Georgie Drew, John, Lionel, and Maurice); John Hare; Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart of Harrigan and Hart; Henry Irving; Pat Rooney I (1848-1892) and Pat Rooney II (1880-1962); and Lillian Russell.
Holdings for Wilson Barrett, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, James Clouser, Edith Evans, Patrick Hines, B. Iden Payne, Sarah Rollitts, William Shakespeare, J. Scott Smart, Roland Young, and Florenz Ziegfeld have been removed from the Bio File and are treated as discrete collections.
J. C. Trewin (1908-1990) Papers
Size: ca. 20 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Associate Librarian
The Trewin papers hold correspondence, manuscripts and other material relating to works by Trewin, and numerous manuscripts of his drama reviews. Correspondents include Enid Bagnold, Denys Blakelock, Ivor Brown, Henry Caine, Charles Causley, Alan Dent, Patrick Dickinson, Baliol Holloway, Martin Holmes, Sir Barry Jackson, Ralph Lawrence, John Masefield, Ronald Searle, Ben Travers, and many others.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1852-1945
Size: 2.52 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: See also the George C. Howard and Family Collection.
The Uncle Tom's Cabin Collection comprises photographs (1852-ca. 1900), programs and playbills (1852-ca. 1880), prints (1852-55), clippings (ca. 1900-1945), posters, sheet music (ca. 1850s?), correspondence, published acting editions, a songster, and a framed collage relating to the performance history of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The bulk of the collection consists of playbills and programs documenting the earliest productions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, notably the premiere of George C. Howard's 1852 acting version of Uncle Tom's Cabin; and photographs of stage personalities associated with the play, in particular George L. Fox, Charles K. Fox, Cordelia Howard, and Lotta Crabtree.
Joe E. Ward (b. 1894 or 1895, d. 1971) Circus Collection
Collection Dates: ca. 1811-1970 (bulk 1850-1950)
Size: 47.5 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: Circus Collection
Joe E. Ward, a University of Texas graduate, began a career as a civil engineer in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1912. During the summers of the 1930s and 1940s, he also performed as a clown with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Combined Circus. Ward collected circus publications, memorabilia, and photographs of fellow performers.
The Joe E. Ward Circus Collection contains a wide variety of materials, including photographs, posters, newspaper clippings, and various circus business and publicity materials. The collection also contains Christmas cards from various circus performers (including Emmett Kelly), performance costume pieces and props, small toys and figurines, and Ward's collection of circus-themed salt and pepper shakers. Other Ringling Brothers clowns, such as Felix Adler, Paul Jerome, and Paul Jung, whose personal touring trunk is included in the collection, are particularly well documented through photographs, correspondence, and memorabilia. Ward's collection also contains many copies of circus-themed magazines and newsletters, such as White Tops, Bandwagon, and Circus Review.
Richard Heron Ward (1910-1969) Collection
Collection Dates: 1930s-1960s
Size: ca. 10 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Associate Librarian
In this collection, Ward's life in the theater as an actor and producer, as well as founder and director of the Adelphi Theatre, is chronicled in his correspondence and works written for and about the theater. The bulk of the collection consists of Heron's writings which include novels, plays, essays, lectures, BBC broadcasts, articles, poems, verse, and reviews. These materials date from the early 1930s through late 1960s, with the earliest pieces being class assignments for Stowe School, Buckinghamshire. Of particular interest is the combined presence of holograph, typescript, and published versions of many compositions. In addition to Ward's writings, ample correspondence exists related to his activity in the Peace Pledge Union, BBC Home Service, and Religious Drama Society.
William Winter (1836-1917) Papers
Collection Dates: 1857-1920 (bulk 1876-1916)
Size: 1.68 linear feet
Access: preliminary inventory
Contact: Performing Arts staff
Related Materials: The Manuscripts Collection holds two folders of Winter correspondence which are accessible via the Center's card catalog.
William Winter was theater critic for the New York Tribune from 1865 to 1909, wrote biographies of the Jeffersons, Belasco, Booth, Irving and Ada Rehan, and published volumes of poems and reminiscences.
The papers include both Winter's incoming and outgoing correspondence, manuscripts of works, clippings, photographs and prints, and other printed materials concerning Winter. A few manuscripts by and concerning others are present, most notably those of Winter's son, Jefferson Winter. The papers are arranged in three series: I. Correspondence; II. Works and Other Papers; and III. Works and Papers of Others.
William Winter's correspondence consists largely of letters received from a number of theater and literary people concerning reviews, performances, and business and social engagements. Correspondents include Viola Allen, Mary Anderson, Wilson Barrett, Edwin Booth, Charles Coghlan, Augustin Daly, Minnie Maddern Fiske, John Forbes-Robertson, Daniel Frohman, Sir John Hare, Henry Irving, Lillie Langtry, Julia Marlowe, Tyrone Power, Ada Rehan, Ellen Terry, and Lester Wallack. Some outgoing correspondence by Winter is also present, most of it addressed to J. B. Clapp. The Winter manuscripts are poems and theatrical writings, most of which are holograph drafts and fragmentary in nature. Some clippings, a photograph, some prints, obituaries, and a program for a testimonial to Winter in 1916 complete the William Winter materials in the first two series.
Series III contains works by others, some of which Winter either edited or had plans to work on. Winter's son Jefferson published a testimonial to actor Frank Worthing in 1911, and manuscripts and correspondence document his efforts. Present are letters to Jefferson Winter from several figures who included their reminiscences of Worthing: Viola Allen, Blanche Bates, Acton Davies, Louis V. DeFoe, Julia Marlowe, Hale McAllister, Henry Miller, S. Morris Pentland, Tyrone Power, Augustus Thomas, and Frank Worthing.
A major collection of William Winter's papers is housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
The Harry Ransom Center's blog Cultural Compass gives an insider's look at news, events, exhibitions, acquisitions, multimedia content, researcher and scholarly work, conservation, and items from the collections.
