Selected typewritten or handwritten plays deposited in the United States Copyright Office that were subsequently transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division due to their unique or noteworthy qualities. The collection is among the oldest of the extant plays, including examples of early items bound in leather and others that are handwritten. The collection also contains plays by well-known authors as well as a rich variety of plays including comedy sketches, monologues, musical revue, spectacles and other uniquely American works.

Richard Livingston Coe (1914‑1995), born in New York, NY was a theater and cinema critic for The Washington Post for more than fifty years. The collection consists of approximately 5,000 programs and playbills from American theaters and some foreign productions published from the early 1900s to the late 1970s, many with the collector's annotations.

The Theater Playbills and Programs Collection which consists of theater programs divided into multiple series with individually cataloged programs and playbills. Items are organized by subject, format and donor and include Shakespeare plays, historical American playbills, foreign productions, souvenir programs, scrapbooks and miscellany.

Collection of theater, film and concert programs for performances in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, London, England and other locations, many annotated by Armenian American film and theater director Rouben Mamoulian. Arranged alphabetically by title in three separate groupings: Programs and Playbills, Miscellany and Movie Miscellany.