Music Division

Hope Shippee, costume designer. *[String Fever(marionette): Trapeze clowns. Green clown costume with triangles. Blue clown costume with circles.]*. 1938. Federal Theatre Project collection. Library of Congress Music Division.

Many of the Library's rare materials and special collections specific to theater are housed by the Music Division in the Performing Arts Reading Room. Rare materials can include etchings of stage designs and settings. Special collections related to theater fall into two broad categories:

personal papers of actors, playwrights, designers, directors, and producers
organizational records of theater companies or organizations

Browse a complete list of special collections on the Performing Arts Reading Room website. Provided links are for finding aids (descriptive documents of collection contents) or collection-level catalog records if finding aids are not yet completed. Both finding aids and catalog records contain collection content summaries.

Finding aids and catalog records for special collections may indicate transfers of audio-visual materials to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, & Recorded Sound Division. To find this information:

Finding aids: select the tab "Using This Collection." Under the heading "Administrative Information" the subheading "Transfers" will contain any relevant information.
Catalog records: transfer information appears next to the heading "Notes."

Find the most current information on new acquisitions and finding aids using the theater category of our Performing Arts Blog In the Muse and by searching across all finding aids at the Library of Congress.

Access Note: Some collections are housed off-site and require advance notice to retrieve. Contact us through Ask a Librarian if you have questions about researching a specific collection.

Highlighted Rare Materials

The Music Division also has a handful of rare materials that have been individually cataloged, including 17th- and 18th-century theatrical designs. The following titles offer a sample of rare materials available in the Music Division. The titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

L'Hipermestra : festa teatrale rappresentata dal sereniss. principe cardinale Gio. Carlo di Toscana per celebrare il giorno natalizio del real principe di Spagna by Pier Francesco Cavalli
Call Number: ML50.2.H38 C2
Published/Created: 1658
The plates are etched and consist of an allegorical frontispiece, 12 views of stage settings, and a view of the Teatro della Pergola as seen from the stage.
Innhalt und Verfassung der comoedi von Liebs Betrug ; ersinnet von Benedicto Ferrari ; dedicieret dem aller durchleuchtigsten grossmächtigsten und Unüberwindlichsten Römischen Kayser auch zu Hungarn und Böhmem König &c. &c. by Antonio Bertali
Call Number: ML48 [S874]
Published/Created: 1653
Available online
Includes descriptions of theater, scene design, intermezzi, and leaves of plates designed by Burnaccini and engraved by Jacobo Sandrart that illustrate stage settings for various scenes.

Highlighted Special Collections

Provided links are for finding aids (descriptive documents of collection contents) or collection-level catalog records if finding aids are not yet completed. Both finding aids and catalog records contain collection content summaries.

Peggy Clark papers [finding aid]
Peggy Clark was an American lighting, scenic, and costume designer. The collection includes light plots, scenic renderings, correspondence, published and unpublished writings, blueprints, programs, photographs, posters, scripts, scrapbooks, clippings, notes, memorabilia and other materials related to her life and career.
Maxine Glorsky papers relating to Martha Graham [finding aid]
The collection focuses on Glorsky's relationship with the Martha Graham Dance Company as its stage manager during the 1970s and early 1980s. It also incorporates substantial material from Jean Rosenthal, Graham’s lighting designer during the 1940s and 1950s. The collection includes many cue sheets for both stage management and lighting purposes, lighting plots, related technical materials, business papers for Glorsky’s Technical Assistance Group (TAG) Foundation and Rosenthal’s Theatre Production Service (TPS), correspondence, and a modest amount of publicity, news clippings, and programs.
Florence Klotz costume designs [finding aid]
Florence Klotz was an American costume designer best known for her work on Broadway musical collaborations with composer Stephen Sondheim and director Harold (Hal) Prince, including Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), and Pacific Overtures (1976). The collection contains finished costume designs, sketches, fabric samples, and other materials for five musicals and one film adaptation.
Paul F. Stiga collection of stage and costume design [catalog record]
The Paul F. Stiga collection of stage and costume design contains original theatrical designs by artists of many nationalities, most dating from the late-19th through late-20th centuries. Reflecting Stiga's eclecticism as a collector, the range of productions represented in the design materials span from those associated with the Ballets Russes, Broadway musicals and dramas, opera, vaudeville entertainments, and films.
Tony Walton theatrical designs and notebooks [catalog record]
The collection includes theatrical designs for several Walton productions, including Cole Porter's Anything Goes, an American Ballet Theatre production of Sleeping Beauty, Leonard Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Chicago.
Miles White costume designs [finding aid]
Miles White was an American scenic and costume designer for Broadway musicals and stage productions. The collection consists mostly of finished designs and sketches, some of which include fabric samples and other related materials.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz papers [catalog record]
The collection consists chiefly of a set of 85 scrapbooks which preserve the record of the lives and careers of Ball and Arnaz as they were recorded by the contemporary press. The childhood years of their children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. also figure prominently in the scrapbooks. In addition to the clippings and articles, there are many photographs, letters, telegrams, greeting cards, and other items.
Milton Berle papers [finding aid]
Milton Berle (1908-2002) was an American vaudevillian, comic, actor, lyricist, producer, and author. Nicknamed "Mr. Television," Berle transitioned from a successful career in radio to become host of NBC's Texaco Star Theatre. The collection contains comedic writings, scripts, correspondence, business papers, photographs, music, and other materials that document his life and career in entertainment.
Alfred Drake papers [finding aid]
Alfred Drake was an American actor, singer, director, and author. The collection primarily documents Drake's theatrical career, and includes scripts, music scores, photographs, programs, writings, production materials, correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, and other miscellaneous materials.
Jack Raymond collection of playbills [catalog record]
John M. "Jack" Raymond was a significant and prolific collector of sound recordings, theater programs, and maps, a movie maker, a pilot, a published author and a world traveler. The collection consists of playbills.

American / Century Play Company scripts and business papers [finding aid]
The American Play Company / Century Play Company was a conglomerate publishing house that represented many of the most prominent American playwrights and dramatists of the 20th century. The scripts and business papers in the collection document numerous aspects of American theater production history, including author representation, show production, publishing, and licensing for television, film, radio, and stock productions. The script library includes five working copies of The Glass Menagerie (1944) by Tennessee Williams and early performance drafts of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1921), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and Strange Interlude (1923). The collection also highlights several unpublished and unproduced works by female playwrights, such as Harriet Ford and Margery Benton Cooke.
George S. Kaufman and Anne Kaufman Schneider papers [finding aid]
George S. Kaufman was an American playwright, producer, director, drama critic, and humorist. The collection includes correspondence, photographs, scripts, and other materials related to his career. His daughter, Anne Kaufman Schneider, remained active in preserving Kaufman's legacy well into the 1990s. Her correspondence related to these efforts and family photographs are also included in the collection.
Arthur Laurents papers [finding aid]
Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, screenwriter, and Broadway director. The collection includes scripts, correspondence, datebooks, photographs, book drafts, production notes, programs, publicity materials, business papers, awards, clippings, and articles.
Neil Simon Papers [catalog record]
The collection contains Simon's scripts in various drafts and permutations, notes, outlines, including works contemplated and begun, but not completed. In addition, there are photographs, correspondence, artistic sketches, and various items of realia, including 3-dimensional awards noting Simon's career.
Arthur Whitelaw collection [catalog record]
The collection includes music, production materials, scripts, correspondence, photographs, films and video recordings, datebooks, designs, and realia.

Richard Adler collection [catalog record]
Richard Adler was an American composer, lyricist, and producer. The collection of Richard Adler's papers is rich in correspondence with notable figures of the 20th century. Also included are scrapbooks, sound recordings, photographs, theatrical ephemera, production and publicity materials, and personal memorabilia.
American / Century Play Company scripts and business papers [finding aid]
The American Play Company / Century Play Company was a conglomerate publishing house that represented many of the most prominent American playwrights and dramatists of the 20th century. The scripts and business papers in the collection document numerous aspects of American theater production history, including author representation, show production, publishing, and licensing for television, film, radio, and stock productions. The script library includes five working copies of The Glass Menagerie (1944) by Tennessee Williams and early performance drafts of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1921), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and Strange Interlude (1923). The collection also highlights several unpublished and unproduced works by female playwrights, such as Harriet Ford and Margery Benton Cooke.
Federal Theatre Project collection [finding aid]
The Federal Theatre Project, created by the U.S. Works Progress Administration in 1935, was designed to conserve and develop the skills of theater workers, re-employ them on public relief, and to bring theater to thousands in the United States who had never before seen live theatrical performances. The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, play and radio scripts, reports, research studies, manuals, publications, bulletins, forms, lists, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, charts, costume and set designs, blue-prints, posters, addressograph plates, photographs, negatives, slides, playbills, and other records documenting the activities of the Federal Theatre Project and its impact on all aspects of the theater.
Gilbert Miller papers [finding aid]
Gilbert Miller was an American producer and theater owner. The collection includes correspondence, photographs, scenic renderings, contracts, and other materials that document Miller’s theatrical influences, personal connections, and professional accomplishments.
Harold Prince papers [finding aid]
Harold Prince is a theater producer and director. The papers chiefly consist of personal correspondence and Prince’s annotated copies of the scripts for the shows he directed.
Howard E. Reinheimer papers [catalog record]
The collection includes contracts, agreements, and correspondence regarding several theatrical properties represented by Howard E. Reinheimer.
Lars Schmidt papers [finding aid]
Lars Schmidt was a Swedish theater producer and director whose company held the Scandinavian rights to numerous English-language plays. The collection includes correspondence, production materials, photographs, business papers, scrapbooks, and other materials related to his life and work, and that of his wife, actress Ingrid Bergman.
Oliver Smith papers [finding aid]
Oliver Smith was an American production designer, producer, and teacher of theatrical design. Smith contributed his talents to many of the twentieth century's most beloved musicals, ballets, and plays. The collection includes painted set elevations, renderings, sketches, blueprints and technical drawings, correspondence, photographs, programs, and other materials. Only design materials for select productions are available at this time.
Roger L. Stevens collection [finding aid]
The Stevens collection includes documentation on his activities in a number of different areas: as a theatrical producer over the course of many years in the later half of the 20th century and his association with some of the most respected American and European playwrights, actors and directors as well as other producers; as an arts administrator with the National Endowment for the Arts and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC; and as one of the nation's leading businessmen in real estate, in New York City, Seattle, and New Haven, among other locations. Contains correspondence, playscripts, playbills, photographs, office notes, books.
Theatre Communications Group program collection [catalog record]
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre was founded in 1961. TCG currently unites over 700 Member Theatres and affiliate organizations and over 7,000 individual members. The organization is North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. The collection is comprised of several thousands theater programs from performance organizations around the country.
Robert Whitehead papers [finding aid]
Robert Whitehead was a Tony Award-winning theatrical producer and director. The collection contains production files, correspondence, business papers, writings, photographs, costume and set renderings, programs and promotional materials, scripts, and other materials related to his life and career.

About the Performing Arts Reading Room

The Performing Arts Reading Room is the access point for the collections in the custody of the Music Division at the Library of Congress. Numbering approximately 20.5 million items and spanning more than 1000 years of Western music history and practice, these holdings include the classified music and book collections, music and literary manuscripts, iconography, microforms, periodicals, musical instruments, published and unpublished copyright deposits, and close to 500 special collections in music, theater, and dance.

Performing Arts Reading Room
Submit a question through our Ask a Librarian service, call us at (202) 707-5507, or visit us in person in Room LM 113 in the James Madison building in Washington, D.C. Please read our policies and rules for using performing arts materials before visiting in person. In addition, researchers must have a reader registration card at time of submitting requests to access material in the reading room.

Theater Research at the Library of Congress

Performing Arts: Ask a Librarian

Music Division

Highlighted Rare Materials

Highlighted Special Collections

About the Performing Arts Reading Room