Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1978 - 25

Research
The Shubert Archive:
A Future Dream
by William Ndini

for Scholars

The Shubert Archive represents, perhaps, the largest and most
definitive treasury of American commercial theatre materials. It refleets an accumulation of seventy-five years of theatrical memorabilia-owing to the Shubert brothers' 1) prolific output of shows in
New York and throughout the United States; 2) vast amassing of
domestic and foreign scripts, scores, and libretti; and 3) the Shubert
penchant to save every record, bill, and item connected with every
Shubert show and enterprise.
Cataloging and preservation of the Archive began as a project two
years ago through an arrangement between the Shubert Foundation
and the School of the Arts at New York University. A grant for basic
organization and conservation work was provided for by the foundation. Eight doctoral students were selected by Brooks McNamara,
director of the Archive and professor in the Graduate Drama Department of the School of the Arts, and Brigitte Kueppers, head archivist,
who had previously been responsible for cataloging the Chamberlain
Brown Collection at the New York Public Library's Lincoln Center
Theatre Collection.
In the intervening two years, the Shubert Archive materials have
been assembled from their locations in several Shubert theatres. The
basic sorting, defining, and preserving process has begun. But the
enormity of the contents will prevent a systematic use of the Archive
for several years. To date, the Archive has revealed the following:
approximately 1,500 architectural drawings, renderings, blueprints,
plans, and notes pertaining to various Shubert real estate holdings;
countless original costume designs dating from the early 1910's to
about 1935 or 1936; more than a hundred folders of scene designs,
ground plans, elevations, sectional views, furniture plots, hanging
plans, and set models; about 2,000 photographs of performers and
productions; thirty-six file drawers of clippings and programs; discs
of recorded broadcasts of Shubert musicals; boundless packages of
scores, scripts, musical parts, burlesque and revue sketches, reviews, and critical evaluations of submitted manuscripts; correspondence, ranging from transactions with George Bernard Shaw to artistic mandates from AI Jolson; and a vast storehouse of financial
records, receipts, and rentals of the Century Library, the licensing
and leasing subsidiary of the Shubert organization.
At the present time the Archive is unable to admit visitors to the
collection or to provide information by mail about its holdings. The
Passing Show, a newsletter published bi-annually, will seek to inform
interested scholars of the work of the Archive. It can be obtained by
writing to the Shubert Archive, 234 West 44th Street, New York, New
York 10036.

Poster from the recent Shubert Archive exhibit at the Shubert
Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Research Center for the Federal Theatre Project
by Elizabeth D. Walsh, Curator and Brenda Zanger Greene
The Research Center for the Federal Theatre Project was established at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia) in 1974 when
the Library of Congress agreed to deposit the production materials of
the Federal Theatre Project on permanent loan to the University's
library. Assisted by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the staff has spent the last two years organizing and
cataloging these records.
When the Project was closed in 1939 by act of Congress, the
records were shipped to Washington. The administrative records

were deposited in the National Archives and the production materials
were sent to the Library of Congress and placed in storage where
they remained until 1974. Their recovery by Professors Brown and
O'Connor of George Mason University and Dr. John Cole of the
Library of Congress has opened up an area of American theatre
history unavailable for study until now.
Between its establishment in August 1935 and its abrupt closing in
June 1939, the Federal Theatre Project employed over 12,000 people
at one time and produced 830 major stage plays and over 6,000 radio
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1978
