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The entries below describe stage and film collections that do not focus on LGBTQ+ materials and/or artists, but do include relevant materials. These relevant items have been identified at the bottom of each entry. The links included direct to the finding aid for each collection; for collections that are unprocessed, link directs to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
Richard Adler (b. August 3, 1921, New York, NY; d. June 21, 2012, Southampton, NY) was an American composer and lyricist. Adler produced The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees on Broadway, and he produced and directed various celebrity productions during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
This collection includes Aaron Copland materials.
The roots of the American Play Company go back to the 1880s when Elizabeth Marbury (b. June 19, 1856, New York, NY; d. January 22, 1933, New York, NY) became the protégé of theatrical impresario Daniel Frohman and the business representative of Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of Little Lord Fauntleroy. In 1914, Marbury merged her company with Selwyn & Co. to form the American Play Company. In 1950, the American Play Company merged with the Century Play Company.
This collection includes Charles Laughton correspondence, business papers pertaining to Elisabeth Marbury, and scripts for plays by Somerset Maugham and John Van Druten.
Milton Berle (b. Mendel Berlinger, July 12, 1908, New York, NY; d. March 27, 2002, Los Angeles, CA) was an American comedian, actor, and radio and television personality. Berle's career as an entertainer spanned more than 80 years, first in silent films and on stage as a child actor, then in radio, movies, and television.
This collection includes Cole Porter correspondence.
Peggy Clark (b. Margaret Brownson Clark, September 30, 1915, Baltimore, MD; d. June 18, 1996, Lexington, GA) was an American lighting, scenic, and costume designer. She worked on some 78 Broadway productions as a lighting designer such as Bells Are Ringing (1956) and Bye Bye Birdie (1960), and plays, such as The Trip to Bountiful (1953) and The Rose Tattoo (1966); she also occasionally worked as a set designer.
This collection includes Oliver Smith correspondence and set design materials.
Barbara Cook (b. October 25, 1927, Atlanta, GA; d. August 8, 2017, Manhattan, NY) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals Plain and Fancy (1955), Candide (1956) and The Music Man (1957), for which she won a Tony Award. She continued performing mostly in theatre until the mid-1970s, when she began a second career as a cabaret and concert singer.
This collection was donated by Adam LeGrant, and includes Stephen Sondheim materials.
Alfred Drake (b. October 7, 1914, New York, NY; d. July 25, 1992, New York, NY) was an American actor, singer, director and author. He originated the leading roles in three classic musicals: Oklahoma!, Kiss me Kate, and Kismet.
This collection includes Cole Porter materials relating to Kiss Me Kate, and Thornton Wilder correspondence.
Geraldine Farrar (b. February 28, 1882, Melrose, MA; d. March 11, 1967, Ridgefield, CT) was an American operatic soprano and film actress. From 1906 until 1922 she sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York as one of its leading stars. Farrar also recorded extensively on Victor labels, starred in 14 silent movies, and appeared on the radio as a host for Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.
This collection includes Reynaldo Hahn correspondence.
Oscar Hammerstein II (b. July 12, 1895, New York, NY; d. August 23, 1960, Doylestown, PA) was an American librettist, lyricist, producer, director, publisher, and the grandson of impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. Among his most important work were the lyrics for Show Boat (with music by Jerome Kern) and the lyrics for eleven shows written with Richard Rodgers, beginning with Oklahoma! (1943) and ending with The Sound of Music (in 1959).
This collection includes Stephen Sondheim correspondence and James Whale Show Boat materials.
George S. Kaufman (b. November 16, 1889, Pittsburgh, PA; d. June 2, 1961, New York, NY) was a playwright, director, producer, humorist, and drama critic. His daughter, Anne Kaufman Schneider (b. June 23, 1925), is a patroness of the arts, and has been the executrix of his estate and works since 1961.
This collection includes Eva Le Gallienne photographs and clippings.
Danny Kaye (b. January 18, 1911, Brooklyn, NY; d. March 2, 1987, Los Angeles, CA) was an actor, singer, dancer, comedian, and humanitarian. He appeared in 17 films, on Broadway, on television, and in a variety of concert settings. He was married to Sylvia Fine (b. August 29, 1913, Brooklyn, NY; d. October 29, 1991, New York, NY), a lyricist, composer, writer, lecturer, and producer.
This collection includes Rupert Allan correspondence, Claudette Colbert correspondence and photographs, Frank McCarthy correspondence, and Oliver Smith correspondence.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (b. May 29, 1897, Brno, Moravia; d. November 29, 1957, Hollywood, CA) was a composer, conductor, and pianist noted for his orchestral works, operas, concertos, film scores, piano music, and chamber music. He wrote the scores for sixteen Hollywood films, winning two Oscars for scores for Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). After World War II Korngold returned to working in more traditional genres of classical music.
This collection includes Dimitri Mitropoulos correspondence.
Jonathan Larson (b. February 4, 1960, Mt. Vernon, NY; d. January 25, 1996, New York, NY) was an American composer, lyricist, playwright, and performer who wrote primarily for the musical theater. He is best remembered for RENT, his successful rock musical adaptation of La Bohème. The collection contains materials relating to his musicals, musical revues, club acts, films, and dance works, also including Superbia, and tick, tick...BOOM!.
This collection includes RENT materials and Stephen Sondheim correspondence.
Alan Jay Lerner (b. August 31, 1918, New York, NY; d. June 14, 1986, New York, NY) was a librettist, screenwriter, lyricist and playwright. He is perhaps best remembered for his collaborations with composer Frederick Loewe, which included Brigadoon, Camelot, Gigi, and My Fair Lady. He was a three-time Tony-winner, a three-time Oscar-winner, and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence, photographs, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue materials.
LOST MUSICALS is a British musical theater project established in 1989 by Ian Marshall Fisher, dedicated to presenting forgotten musicals by well-known American writers. Fisher is an authority on the Golden Age of the American theater, 1930-1960. He has worked in the United States with the estates of Broadway's major theater writers and has directed revivals of musicals by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Kurt Weill, among others.
This collection includes Cole Porter materials and Stephen Sondheim materials.
David Merrick (b. November 27, 1911, St. Louis, MO; d. April 26, 2000, London, England) was a theatrical producer, responsible for the success of many Broadway musicals, among them, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hello, Dolly!, Gypsy, Oliver!, and Promises, Promises. His work won eleven Tony Awards during a career that spanned six decades; he also produced four films.
This collection includes Lionel Bart materials.
Gilbert Miller (b. July 3, 1884, New York, NY; d. January 2, 1969, New York, NY) was an American producer and theater owner. The papers consist of theater production materials related to Miller's life and career that provide insights into his work as a manager, producer, and advocate for the theater.
This collection includes Noel Coward correspondence and Michael Redgrave correspondence.
Harold Prince (b. January 30, 1928, New York, NY; d. July 31, 2019, Keflavik, Iceland) was a theater producer and director, known for his work on some of the most significant Broadway musicals of the twentieth century including Cabaret, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof, A Little Night Music, The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story. During his career which spanned six decades, he won 21 Tony Awards, more than any other individual.
This collection includes Cecil Beaton correspondence, Marlene Dietrich correspondence, Fred Ebb correspondence, and Larry Kramer correspondence.
Composer Richard Rodgers (b. June 28, 1902, New York, NY; d. December 30, 1979, New York, NY) is best known for the musicals he wrote with Lorenz Hart (including A Connecticut Yankee, On Your Toes, The Boys from Syracuse, and Pal Joey) and Oscar Hammerstein II (including Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music). Rodgers also composed film and television music (notably, the score for Victory at Sea).
This collection includes Lorenz Hart project files.
Harold Rome (b. May 27, Hartford, CT; d. October 26, 1993, New York, NY) was a composer and lyricist. He came to prominence in 1937 with his revue Pins and Needles; his 1962 musical I Can Get it for you Wholesale provided the Broadway debut of Barbra Streisand.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein correspondence, Cole Porter correspondence, and Marc Blitzstein correspondence.
The four scrapbooks that comprise this collection document the personal and professional lives of actors Rudolph Schildkraut and his son Joseph. Rudolph Schildkraut (b. April 27, 1862, Constantinople, Turkey; d. July 15, 1930, Los Angeles, CA) was a stage and screen actor; Joseph Schildkraut (b. March 22, 1895, Vienna, Austria; d. January 21, 1964, New York, NY) was an actor who appeared on stage, in films, and in television.
The scrapbooks include Eva Le Gallienne photographs.
Lars Schmidt (b. June 11, 1917, Uddevalla, Sweden; d. October 18, 2009, Fjällbacka, Sweden) was a Swedish theater producer, director, and publisher whose company held the Scandinavian rights to numerous English-language plays and musicals. He produced a number of plays and musicals in Paris and London as well.
This collection includes Leonard Bernstein West Side Story materials, Jean Genet materials, Henry de Montherlant correspondence, and Tennessee Williams photographs.
Paul F. Stiga (b. 1936, d. August 8, 2019) was a well known American collector of costume and stage design. The Stiga collection contains original theatrical designs by artists of many nationalities, most dating from the late-19th through late-20th centuries.
This collection includes Cecil Beaton materials, Florence Klotz materials, Kermit Love materials, Oliver Messel materials, Vincente Minnelli materials, Oliver Smith materials, Pavel Tchelitchew materials, Miles White materials, and Franco Zeffirelli materials.
Robert Whitehead (b. March 3, 1916, Montreal, Canada; d. June 15, 2002, Pound Ridge, NY) was a theatrical producer and director. His distinguished career spanned the period from the late 1940s until the late 1990s and garnered Tony Awards for the original productions of Master Class and A Man for All Seasons and for the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman.
This collection includes William Inge correspondence and scripts.
