The Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
2007 was a great Lawrence and Lee year with an outstanding revival of Inherit the Wind on Broadway with Christopher Plummer as Drummond and Brian Dennehy as Brady. While sorry not to coincide in New York with the Lawrence and Lee families, Nena and her family were thrilled to see this wonderful production, and can’t wait for the next Lawrence and Lee revival!
The Institute’s 2007 year has been outstanding in terms of programs, acquisitions, and teaching. Two Lawrence and Lee lectures this year were supported by the Department of Theatre. The 2006-2007 lecture was given in May by OSU alum and theatre critic Chris Jones, now at the Chicago Tribune, who began his career in theatre criticism by doing reviews for Joy Reilly on WOSU-AM. The 2007-2008 lecture was given in October by internationally known lighting designer Beverly Emmons who has designed for Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, dance, and opera in the U.S. and abroad. She has done numerous productions with Joseph Chaikin, Meredith Monk, and Robert Wilson, and has worked with choreographers Trisha Brown, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham.
The Irwin Spector family visited campus in May for a performance of The Greatest American, one of Spector’s compositions, by the School of Music’s Wind Symphony. Mrs. Spector has established an endowed fund that will support the Dalcroze collections at the Theatre Research Institute which include Spector’s own papers and compositions, as well as records of the Dalcroze School of Music, and papers of Dalcroze practitioners Hilda Schuster, John Colman, and Frances Aronoff.
2007 saw another Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Competition, honoring the great performer, OSU alumna, and Columbus native, Eileen Heckart. Over 500 plays were submitted this time around—the results are at http://heckartdrama.blogspot.com. We’ll be presenting staged readings of the winners, finalists, and semifinalists during the coming year.
Eleven playwrights attended the annual retreat of the International Centre for Women Playwrights hosted by Alan in August. Readings of works-in-progress by a wonderful band of volunteer performers were highlights—much more about the retreat at http://icwpohioretreat.blogspot.com.
The Prague Quadrennial, an international design competition and exhibition, was held this summer, and thanks to the generosity of the OSU Libraries and the Department of Theatre, Nena joined tour leader Joe Brandesky and a number of OSU faculty and students who attended. In addition to enjoying PQ, she had the great pleasure of meeting with a number of Czech designers, and bringing back to the Institute works by Jaroslav Malina, Jana Zborilova, and Jan Štepanek. Their fabulous designs enrich the growing Czech design holdings. Other Czech activities include the loan of a beautiful puppet and her design by Petr Matasek and rare books on puppetry from the Jarka Burian collection to the National Czech & Slovak Library & Museum for exhibition. The Burian research collection on Czech theatre has grown this year, with additions generously donated by Grayce Burian.
Beth has been busy with presentations and research, including delivering a paper at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference in Boston in the spring. In the summer, she did research, and wrote and submitted an article for publication on women magicians/spiritualists and midnight ghost shows. Nena is thrilled that Documenting: Lighting Design, which she co-edited with Susan Brady (Yale) has been published by the Theatre Library Association.
The Curtiss Show Print Collection donated last year and added to this year by Nyle Stateler has been very busy. The Association for College Research Libraries published a a beautiful volume celebrating the organization’s sixty years, and selected Curtiss materials to represent the Ohio State University Libraries. In addition, Nena’s article on Curtiss Show Print (Continental, Ohio) and Hatch Show Print (Nashville, Tennessee) has just come out in Theatre Survey, the journal of the American Society for Theatre Research, with a Curtiss poster on the cover.
Late in the spring we were saddened to hear that Romanian designer/director Mircea Marosin had passed away at his home in England. Joan Faroughy had given almost one hundred of Marosin’s scene and costume designs to the Institute, and later we commissioned Marosin to design King Lear, a production he had always hoped to do, to add to the collection. His designs greatly enrich the Institute holdings.
Marcel Marceau, the great French mime, passed away in September. Through several residencies at OSU arranged by his protégée and faculty member Jeanine Thompson, Marceau touched and inspired many of our students. Documentation of his work at the Institute will keep his genius alive for future generations.
In November, writer extraordinaire Hollis Alpert passed away in Naples, Florida. Hollis first became part of the Institute family while using the Robert Breen collection for his book, The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess, and later established his collection here. Nena had the honor of speaking at the memorial service in Naples. An evocative portrait of Hollis, given last year by artist Tammra Sigler and beautifully framed by Val Pennington, was on display at the service. Hollis’s close friend Lacey King has made a generous donation of additional papers, photographs, and other materials to the Hollis Alpert Literary Collection. Maureen and Mickey Winograd and David S. and Helga Miller have given gifts in Hollis’s memory.
The collections continue to be enriched by many generous donations. Dr. Joel E. Rubin, of Kliegl Bros. Lighting, and co-founder of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, has established a collection on theatre lighting that includes catalogs and other print material from the earliest published Kliegl catalog in 1898; a 1930s set of glass slides and accompanying script for a Kliegl presentation on stage lighting; hand-painted glass “Pose” slides from the late 19th, early 20th centuries accompanied by a scrapbook of the original slide designs; and original technical drawings. A gift of thousands of slides of the work of designer Gordon Micunis was donated by Jay Kobrin, joining the beautiful original Micunis designs held by the Institute. Lesley Ferris and Ruth Tompsett, co-curators of a wonderful exhibition on Carnival coming to OSU in February 2008, have donated materials documenting Carnival. Ken Rinker, dancer with Twyla Tharp in the 1970s has contributed his collection of materials documenting the work of the company. Long-time supporter Paul Stiga donated materials of costume historian Millia Davenport, author of The Book of Costume, a foundational resource for clothing and theatre costume history. Richard Eyen donated a fabulous film poster for Dreamgirls. Charles Chatfield-Taylor, grandson of the Russian artist Boris Anisfeld, has donated an oil portrait by Anisfeld of his daughter, Charlie’s mother, which will be shown in an upcoming exhibition in the spring.
A new collection of playscripts, the work of members of the African-American Playwrights Exchange organized through the efforts of Jaz Dorsey, has been established with initial donations from playwrights George P. Brome, Grace Cavalieri, Peter Lawson Jones, Judy Juanita, Sean O’Leary, Owa, and Jamal Williams. International Centre for Women Playwrights members Vicki Cheatwood, Emily Ball Cicchini, Hortense Gerardo, Diane Melson Howie, Maureen Brady Johnson, Mrinalini Kamath, Shirley King, Kristin Lazarian, Margaret T. McSweeney, Jewel Seehaus-Fisher, and Mary Steelsmith have added to, or established, collections of their plays. Pearl Kastran Ahnen added her work to the Senior Theatre collection.
Professional association archives continue to grow with additional contributions of records of the American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) and the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA). Providence, R.I. critic and ATCA member Bill Gale has established his collection documenting his work in the field, and Michael Grossberg, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, Martin Kohn, and Elizabeth Maupin added to their already established collections. Clara Hieronymus, great lady of theatre criticism, long-time critic for the Nashville Tennessean, and founding member of ATCA, added to her collection at TRI. Ms. Hieronymus, Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., and Henry Hewes are among the ATCA founders interviewed in Under the Copper Beech: Conversations with American Theater Critics, all of whose collections enrich Institute holdings.
Many thanks go out to donors who have already established collections: Twyla Tharp, Bebe Miller, Charles H. McCaghy, Tish Dace, Grayce Burian, Randy Skinner, Bill Bushnell, Marcia Siegel, and Michele LaRue (East Lynne Theater Company). Sara Kahan added a wonderful collection of 19th- and early 20th-century acting editions, sheet music, photographs, souvenir programs, and theatre cigarette cards. The Gerald Kahan Collection of scene and costume designs assembled by her late husband, came to the Institute some years ago with support from Donald Harris in the College of the Arts and William Studer in the University Libraries. Dorothy Indenbaum donated materials to add to the Dalcroze School of Music collection, and Barbara Musso donated a photograph and poster of Audrey Hepburn.
Many donors have kept us up to date with programs, books, videos, and other materials including Charles Babcock, James Bailey, Tom Bay, Melissa Bialko, Vera Borkovec, Marvin Carlson, Chuyoung Chon, Professor Tanya Clyman, Mrs. William B. Emmons, Jr., Lesley Ferris, Fred Holdridge, Lucy Lee, Valerie Lucas, Sheila Marion, Heidi Nielsen, Gayle Stahlhuth, and the Stratford Festival of Canada.
There’s been a whole lot of teaching going on, with OSU Lima professor Joe Brandesky’s students making great use of the Jarka Burian collection and other Czech holdings at the Institute in preparation for the Prague Quadrennial; Alan’s honors seminars researching plays in Institute collections and interacting with the playwrights (Nancy Gall-Clayton, Julia Pearlstein, Linda Eisenstein, and Robert Gately visited Columbus to discuss their work with students); and Theatre Research Methods taught by Beth and Nena with graduate students doing excellent research projects on a variety of topics using Institute collections including those of designers Gordon Micunis and Tony Straiges, actor-humorist Robert Post, choreographer Twyla Tharp, director/producers Robert Breen (Porgy and Bess) and Ted Lange (film of Othello), playwright Tom Eyen, companies Reality Theatre and Harmount Uncle Tom’s Cabin, actress Isabel Bigley Barnett, and others. Mary Tarantino’s graduate lighting design seminar spent the quarter at the Institute exploring the lighting genius of Tom Skelton in the copy collection given by his associate and OSU emerita faculty Louise Guthman.
Orville Martin continues to supervise the reading room and is head guru of the website, Kathleen Kopp continues her work with the TRI’s art holdings, while both Anca Galron and Joan Wells are here several days a week as cataloguers, joined occasionally by Nataliya Chrisman. Our student staff has included graduate students D. Dwayne Blackaller, Chuyoung Chon, Emily Fargo, Kiana Harris, Melanie House, Becky Kallemeyn, Jirye Lee, Bruno Lovric, and Brittany Nau, and undergraduates Justin Culver, Leslie Dow, Anait Grigoryan, Bonita Jackson, Eddie Kerwin, Kim Martin, Emily Metz, Billy Noble, and Jade Hui Huan Pan. Dean Capper continues his work with the Institute’s Dalcroze collections, and Erin Tisdale worked as project archivist for the Dance Notation Bureau collection. We are very grateful to our fabulous volunteers of 2007, Barbara Butler and Chuck Moulton.
All wonders for 2008 –
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Winter Quarter 2007
THE EILEEN HECKART SENIOR DRAMA COMPETITION IS ANNOUNCED
The 2007 Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Competition has begun. Intended to increase plays available for the rapidly growing field of Senior Theatre, the third Heckart Competition accepts plays in three categories: full length, one act (45 minutes or less in playing time), and ten-minute.
Only plays which have not yet received major professional productions may be entered. Plays should include major senior characters and/or deal with issues pertaining to seniors (people over 55). Musicals or adaptations may not be entered. There is no submission fee. Winning playwrights will receive cash prizes ($100 for full length, $75 for one-act, $50 for ten minute).
The Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Competition is sponsored by the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute at The Ohio State University. The first Heckart Competition, in 2003, saw more than 470 scripts entered, while the 2005 Competition brought 459 entries.
Details of entering: Hard copies only. No electronic copies accepted. Author's name should appear only on the title page, not in the text of play. deadline (postmark): March 31, 2007. We hope to announce finalists and semi finalists by the middle of May, winners by the middle of June. Entries should include a brief biographical statement about the author..SASE should be included if the script is to be returned at the conclusion of the competition.
Send submissions to:
Alan Woods
2007 Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Competition
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
The Ohio State University
1430 Lincoln Tower
1800 Cannon Drive
Columbus, OH 43210-1230
Winning plays, and first-runners-up, will receive staged readings at The Ohio State University during the 2007-2008 academic year. Winning writers are not required to attend.
The competition honors Eileen Heckart (1919-2001), the distinguished American actress whose long career culminated in her stunning performance in Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery (2000), for which she received the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award. That same year she was awarded the Tony for lifetime achievement. She also was the recipient of an Academy Award (Butterflies Are Free), Golden Globe (The Bad Seed) and an Emmy (Save Me A Place at Forest Lawn). She was recognized with a Margo Jones Medal in 2000 for her long championing of new plays, having
appeared in almost thirty world premiere productions.
Further information: 614/292-6614 (voice), 614/688-8417 (FAX), woods.1@osu.edu
Visit the Blogspot for even more information: http://heckartdrama.blogspot.com/
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Fall Quarter 2006
Late Breaking Margo Jones Award News
On September 28, at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, The Ohio State University Libraries and College of the Arts presented the Margo Jones Award posthumously to the playwriting team of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The award honors those who have demonstrated a significant impact, understanding and affirmation of the craft of playwriting, and who have encouraged the living theatre everywhere.
A highlight of the celebration was the reading of a scene from Inherit the Wind by noted actors Edward Asner and David Selby, directed by prominent director Gordon Hunt. Making the presentation were College of the Arts Dean Karen Bell, Theatre Research Institute Curator Nena Couch, and Theatre Research Institute Director Alan Woods. Joining in the festivities were many OSU and COTA alumni including Dr. Bernice Zahm and Lynn Dally; theatre, television and film professionals Richard Lewis, Fay Kanin, Hal Kanter, Susan Loewenberg, and Jayne Meadows Allen, among others; and family members and friends of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.
Standing: Alan Woods, Jenny Lee, Neila Lee, Jonathan Lee, Lucy Lee, Karen Bell, Nena Couch. Seated: Deborah Robison, Janet Waldo Lee, Joshua Robison.
The accomplishments of Lawrence and Lee include such long running and widely produced plays as Inherit the Wind, First Monday in October, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, and Auntie Mame. Lawrence and Lee were co-founders of American Playwrights Theatre, administered at OSU by emeritus Theatre faculty member David Ayers.
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Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season from all of us at the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute. This year has been extraordinarily busy (which year hasn’t been?!) with the receipt of wonderful donations, and many activities. We are trying to keep up with everything that is happening on our website redesigned by staff member Orville Martin. Our most exciting staff news is that, thanks to the very generous bequest left to the Institute by Jerome Lawrence, we now have a new position of Associate Curator. Beth Kattelman, who holds the MLIS and PhD degrees, accepted the position and joined Nena Couch (Curator) and Alan Woods (Director) in the administration of the Institute.
Please join us in remembering and celebrating several special people who passed away since our last holiday letter. Roy Bowen, former chair of the Department of Theatre, director of Players Theatre, and long-time donor died on January 2. The Lawrence and Lee Institute was honored to participate in the Department of Theatre’s celebration of Roy’s life which was attended by his family, former students, OSU colleagues, actors whom he had directed, and many friends. Outstanding theatre critic Henry Hewes also passed away this year. He had established his collection at TRI many years ago, and recently added to it. He was a long-time committee member for the Margo Jones Award, now administered by TRI, and a founding member of the American Theatre Critics Association. As theatre critic and TRI donor Tish Dace said in her tribute published in American Theatre, “We have lost Mr. American Theatre.” And we say farewell to the gracious, beautiful, and talented Isabel Bigley Barnett who was Laurey in the London cast of Oklahoma!, created the role of Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, and for whom Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote Me and Juliet. Isabel had given her papers documenting her career to the Institute, and she and husband Lawrence Barnett funded two endowments which support the Arts Policy and Administration program at Ohio State.
The collections continue to be enriched by many generous donations and acquisitions. Mircea Marosin sent his wonderful vision of King Lear, artist Gordon Micunis donated his original designs for the Guthrie Theatre’s production of The Venetian Twins, Louise, Indes Galantes; Paul Stiga donated designs by Peter Rice designs and memorabilia; artist Tammra Sigler painting of Hollis Alpert, Theatre chair emeritus Bo Brown donated the original scene designs by Leo Kerz for the Broadway production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (alumni will recall the designs hanging on Bo’s office walls). Professional association archives continue to grow with contributions of records of the American College Theatre Festival and the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), and with the establishment of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators archive here. We are honored that the Columbus Puppetry Guild, originally chartered in 1940, has established its archives at TRI, as has the Mt. Holyoke College Summer Theatre donated and beautifully organized by founder James Cavanaugh. Dr. Glenda Gill, theatre professor and scholar, has established her collection of research materials for her work which has dealt with the dynamics of race, gender, and class, and how they intersect with African-Americans in the performing arts. Karen Goodheil donated a number of rare magazines and materials on magic. Mary Allen Johnson established the Lew A. Wallace Gone With the Wind materials that her uncle, Mr. Wallace, had collected. Walter O’Neal donated a wonderful scrapbook on Columbus-born actor Elsie Janis from1904-1907. Ben Rader sent a fascinating batch of materials on vaudeville performances of the “Ohio State University Band” in the 1920s, and Michael Brittain sent tapes of Jerome Lawrence interviewing the great Bette Davis.
Randy Gener, senior editor for American Theatre and member of ATCA, has established his collection documenting his work in the field. Clara Hieronymus, great lady of theatre criticism, long-time critic for the Nashville Tennessean, and founding member of ATCA, has begun her collection at TRI. Clara, Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., and Henry Hewes are among the ATCA founders interviewed in Under the Copper Beech: Conversations with American Theater Critics, edited by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, whose collections enrich TRI holdings. Dance critic and scholar Marcia Siegel, who spent much time doing research at TRI, has made a generous gift of her papers related to her new book, Howling Near Heaven: Twyla Tharp and the Reinvention of Modern Dance.
Also on the dance front, through the good work of Senta Driver in New York and Lucy Venable and Sheila Marion here, the board of the Dance Notation Bureau completed the gift agreement for the Labanotated scores in the DNB collection here, and cataloging and re-housing work has begun.
Thanks to donors who have already established collections: Bebe Miller, Tish Dace, Grayce Burian, Catherine Filloux, Caridad Svich, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, Charles McCaghy, M. Glen Wilson, Michele LaRue (East Lynne Theater Company) and Anne Bowen Paulle for the Roy Bowen collection. International Center for Women Playwrights members Shirley Barrie, Vanda, Eliza Wyatt, Sandra Dempsey, Ludmilla Bollow, Diane Grant, Tami Canaday, Shirley King, and Sandra Hosking have added to, or established, collections of their plays. Many donors have kept us up to date with programs, books, videos, and other materials including Marvin Carlson, Sheila Marion, Anne Diehl, Lesley Ferris, Harold and Anita Eisenstein, Harvey Rubin, Jennifer Stoessner, Bonnie Vorenberg, the Stratford Festival of Canada, Valerie Lucas, Enid Weaver (POG), Beth Kattelman, and Charles Moulton.
Donated by Nyle and Helen Stateler, the recently received Curtiss Show Print collection is a remarkable compilation documenting the beautiful letterpress work done by the company for their show business clients. The collection contains wonderful materials printed by Curtiss Show Print (such as posters, window cards, heralds, tickets, ads, letterhead stationery, and other materials), and also work orders and more than 1200 printing blocks. These pieces provide incredible opportunities to explore not only the work of the show printer, but also the history and legacy of tent shows, vaudeville companies, minstrel shows, circuses, and other traveling companies in the early to mid 20th century.
Our activities this year were many and varied, including teaching, play readings, awards, performances, and attendance and presentations at conferences. The Department of Theatre hosted Luke Yankee, who visited in April to perform his one-person show, Diva Dish, which celebrates the life and career of Eileen Heckart, his mother and generous donor of material to TRI, which Luke is continuing. TRI strengthened its connection with Tswane University of South Africa, through Alan Woods’ participation as part of the South African initiative organized by Jacqueline Royster, Executive Dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. Alan also helped to establish “Beyond the Borscht Belt: A Jewish Theatre Celebration” (jointly created by TRI, the Department of Theatre, the OSU Hillel Foundation, and the Columbus Jewish Foundation, with funding from the Leventhal Fund), culminating in a November staged reading of Emily Mann’s Meshuggah, adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel, with Ms. Mann in attendance. Other readings sponsored by TRI this year include When Something Wonderful Ends by Sherry Kramer, given a staged reading by longtime volunteer Barbara Butler in June; Levels of Living, by Nancy Gall-Clayton, Louisville playwright and ICWP member, in December. Details at www.osureadings.blogspot.com.
Teaching this year has been full and fulfilling. Last spring Nena was pleased to share the wonderful Czech designs and research materials from the Jarka Burian collection with students in the Birds seminar taught by Mary Tarantino in preparation for participation by OSU Theatre students in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. Theatre and Aging seminars in July were co-taught by Alan and Joy Reilly, using many of the plays in the Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Collection, and other materials in the Senior Theatre holdings. Alan’s Honors Seminar again had students assigned to research plays in our collections and to interact with the playwrights—26 of whom agreed to participate. In the early fall, Beth Kattelman finished up her obligations as coordinator of Theatre 100 in order to accept the position of Associate Curator. Fall quarter has been very busy with several visits from the Theatre research methods class, working on blocks and posters from the Curtiss Show Print collection. A small exhibition of their choices will be in the reading room during the winter quarter. We were pleased to have students from Professor Steven Conn’s History 489 class who worked on archival projects in the Jarka Burian collection (on Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact), the Ella Gerber Kasakoff collection (identifying photographs of the Robert Breen production of Porgy and Bess), and the Sidney Kingsley collection (in preparation for an online exhibition on the playwright’s work).
The International Center for Women Playwrights Third Annual Retreat was held in August with 10 playwrights in attendance, and volunteer readers. The retreat ended splendidly with the staged reading of ’Til the Fat Lady Sings by Carolyn Gage and Andrea Higgins, both of whom were in attendance, directed by WOSU-FM producer Christopher Purdy and with standout operatic singing by Tamara Regensburger and Crystal Stabinow. Writers’ reactions to these retreats can be found at http://www.netspace.org/~icwp/conferen.html and http://glhorton.podomatic.com/.
The annual presentation of the Margo Jones Medal was a particular joy this year, as it was presented posthumously to Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee for their lifelong encouragement of young writers through teaching, organizations (including creating the American Playwrights Theatre), and active mentoring. It was a delight to present the medals to Jerry’s niece and nephew, Deborah and Joshua Robison, and to Janet Waldo Lee, Jonathan Lee, and Lucy Lee, Bob’s widow and children, in Los Angeles in September at a star-studded event, which included an exciting reading of the courtroom confrontation from Act II of Inherit the Wind, read by Ed Asner and David Selby, and directed by Gordon Hunt. Dean Karen Bell hosted the evening.
Orville Martin continues to supervise the reading room and is head guru of the website, Kathleen Kopp continues her work with the TRI’s art holdings, while both Anca Galron and Joan Wells are here several days a week as cataloguers. Our fall staff included graduate assistants Virginia Logan, Kiana Harris, ChuYoung Chon, and undergraduates Leslie Dow, Anait Grigoryan, Brittany Nau, Doreen Salkiewicz, and Nick Wong. Dean Capper continues his work with the Institute’s Dalcroze collections, and Erin Tisdale worked at TRI as a Dance Heritage Coalition Archives Fellow. We are always grateful to our wonderful volunteers: Barbara Butler, Chuck Moulton, and Joey Thomas who has recently “retired” after having worked with several collections including the Grandparents Living Theatre collection and the Earl Wilson celebrity photographs. We thank her for her important contribution to the Institute and wish her well (keep dancing, Joey!).
All wonders for 2007 –
Nena, Beth, Alan
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Happy Holidays to all our friends, alumni, donors, researchers, and volunteers–and none of those are mutually exclusive categories, of course! 2005 has been a rich and fulfilling year at the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute of The Ohio State University. There’ve been some wonderful gifts, some generous donations and bequests, marvelous public programs/retreats/workshops, and some promising developments for the future.
2005 marked the 50th anniversary of Lawrence and Lee’s landmark play, Inherit the Wind, and the OSU Department of Theatre presented the play to mark the anniversary. We were delighted that Deborah Robison, Jerry Lawrence’s niece, was able to attend the production in May, and to join in a celebration of Lawrence and Lee’s masterpiece. It was made even more special by Deborah’s announcement of a major endowment for the Institute as an exceedingly generous bequest from Jerry which will ensure that Jerry and Bob’s legacy and support for the work of playwrights and theatre scholars worldwide will continue in perpetuity. Jerry’s other family members, Joshua Robison and Paula Robison, joined Janet Waldo Lee, Lucy Lee, and Jonathan Lee in sending messages of support for the production and celebrating the endowment.
A major bequest was made to the Institute by OSU alumnus Dr. William Case Kramer, who left funding for an endowment in his name to enable a graduate student at the Institute to do international travel. Dr. Kramer, who completed his doctorate at Ohio State in 1974, also collected theatrical research material which has come to the Institute on the career and influence of Edward Gordon Craig.
The Institute received a major gift from Professor Jarka Burian, the leading American scholar of Czech theatre, who donated his extensive research files, posters, professional library of books, journals, and scholarly writings. Along with significant collections of Czech design material acquired over the past several years through the good agency of OSU Lima professor Joe Brandesky, the Institute is now the major repository for material on modern Czech theatre in North America. We’re enormously grateful to OSU professor Tom Postlewait for his help in making connections with Professor Burian. Sadly, Dr. Burian passed away shortly after making the gift, so the Burian Collection has become a memorial one, preserving his research legacy. Grayce Burian has been incredibly generous in extending help with the materials, even during the time of mourning Dr. Burian’s passing.
Doreen Stouffer Kuhl donated an outstanding library of rare theatre books and playbills collected by her late husband Lawrence Wm. Kuhl as well as some fascinating correspondence and other materials on Irish playwright Lennox Robinson who was a colleague and friend.
Joan Faroughy donated original costume, scene, and poster designs by renowned Romanian director/designer Mircea Marosin. In person and on the phone with Lesley Ferris and Nena Couch, Mr. Marosin has generously shared his vision of “a scenic environment permanently ready to reflect, to participate, to be receptive and to comment on the rapport which relates the actor to the stage.” Planning for an online exhibition of this stunning work is underway, so check the TRI website in a couple of months.
Other wonderful additions to the art collections include a scene design and posters by Jaroslav Malina; an oil painting by Boris Anisfeld from his grandson, Charles Chatfield-Taylor; drawings by Mathias Armbruster from Leeann Faust; 19th-century prints from Fredric Woodbridge Wilson; models by designer Tony Straiges; a scene design by Lester Polakov from Louise Guthman; and costume designs by Susan Branch from Paul Stiga as well as a prop by Red Grooms – a painted snake (that box was a shock to open!). We would like to thank Institute friend Marina Henderson for her valuable assistance in building the design holdings.
Strollers/Scarlet Mask established its archive at TRI, and graduate student Adrian Brown enjoyed processing it, finding not only treasures from the organization’s early years, but also a picture of himself in production.
Playwrights Caridad Svich, Catherine Filloux, Don Nigro, Chiquita Mullins Lee and Larry Loebell added to their collections this past year, as did members of the International Center for Women Playwrights, including Dori Appel, Ludmilla Bollow, Vicki Cheatwood, Linda Eisenstein, Nancy Gall Clayton, Cass Ericson, Paddy Gillard-Bentley, G. L. Horton, Shirley King, Robin Rice Lichtig, Rachel Rubin Ladutke, Mrinalini Namath, Rebecca Nesvet, Jamie Pachino, Sandra Perlman, Judith Pratt, Jewel Seehaus-Fisher, Faye Sholiton, Donna Spector, Suzanne Thomson, and Vanda. Sandra Dempsey sent records of the ICWP.
Critics/writers Hollis Alpert, Alice Carter, Holly Hill, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, and Martin F. Kohn established, or added to, their collections, and the American Theatre Critics Association sent the annual membership reviews to add to the archive.
Theatre historians have enriched the collections this year: Mary Henderson donated the extensive research files which she used for her outstanding book, Mielziner: Master of Modern Stage Design. M. Glen Wilson has donated the manuscript of his detailed biography of Charles Kean as well as extensive research materials on the actor’s life and career. As Glen’s fascination with Kean began during a seminar with Dr. John H. McDowell here some four decades ago, it’s wonderful to have the research work come home.
We’re also grateful to Clifford Ashby, Abe Bassett, Fred Blumberg, Joan Campbell, Marvin Carlson, Harold and Anita Eisenstein, Lesley Ferris, Carter and Joanne Jastram, Randy Kaplan, Antonia Sophia Krueger, Charles H. McCaghy, Frank and Claudia Mohler, Randy Skinner, Julia Weiss, David L. Woods, and Luke Yankee for adding to their collections and continuing donations of theatrical programs, books, slides, photographs, and other materials.
Several ICWP members joined us in August for the second annual Playwrights’ Retreat, which included readings of works-in-progress; Columbus theatre artists Katherine Burkman, Geoff Nelson, William Goldsmith and Joy Reilly (with the performance ensemble, Howling at the Moon) all conducted workshops, while Columbus-based composer David Tolley led a workshop on musical theatre.
The second Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition drew almost 460 entries in three categories (full-length, one-act, and ten-minute plays). Winning plays were announced in June: a tie in the full-length category between Janet Overmyer of Columbus (My Beginning) and Dan Aibel of New York (Lapses). Innocent Bystanders by Katherine Dubois of Boulder, Colorado, was the winning one-act play, while Milwaukee playwright Ludmilla Bollow won the ten-minute category with Saving America. Readings of the winning plays were held in the fall. Many of the plays entered in the competition were recommended for inclusion in the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Archive by evaluators, and we’re grateful to the more than 70 people who read and evaluated the entries. The next Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition will be held in 2007.
Nena Couch has had a busy year, starting with Design for the American Stage, an exhibition of the Institute’s costume, scene, and lighting designs shown at the Riffe Gallery in downtown Columbus. With dancer Ligia Pinheiro and harpsichordist Donna Boyd, she gave a paper and performance of 18th-century Spanish dance at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. A 2005 highlight for Nena was being choreographer for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Lesley Ferris for the Virginia Arts Festival. To round the year out, she just got back from Prague, Czech Republic, on a theatre study tour led by Joe Brandesky.
Alan Woods, together with Department of Theatre colleague Joy Reilly, offered the first graduate courses in Theatre and Aging during the summer, marking the nation’s first graduate emphasis in Theatre and Aging; it’ll now be possible for people to earn a MA or PhD in Theatre at Ohio State and also qualify for Certification in Gerontology. Alan’s course, “Crones, Curmudgeons, and Living Treasures–Theatre and Aging,” drew heavily on the Heckart Archive. Both courses received funding from Ohio State’s office of Continuing Education. Two new undergraduate Honors and Scholars courses using TRI treasures were funded: “Introduction to Theatre: Making History,” (taught by Alan) in which students reconstruct the production of a play from the TRI collections and interview the playwright; and “Perceptions of ‘Them’: Race and Ethnicity in American Popular Culture” (team-taught by Nena and special collections colleagues Lucy Caswell and Geoff Smith) which approached the issues of race and ethnicity through popular culture materials held in TRI, the Cartoon Research Library, and Rare Books and Manuscripts. Both courses met with great success, and will be repeated in 2006.
Please join us in welcoming Orville Martin, most recently from the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse and previously from OSU Libraries, to the TRI staff. Orville has replaced Val Pennington, who purchased Barth Galleries, returning to his own framing and paper conservation business. Kathleen Kopp continues her work with the TRI’s art holdings, while both Anca Galron and Joan Wells are here several days a week as cataloguers, joined by Suzanne Hochman working on Dr. Burian’s Czech materials. Our fall staff included graduate assistants Gina DiSalvo and Adrian Brown, and undergraduates Anait Grigoryan, Adam Gunning, Adrienne Johnson, Brittany Nau, Doreen Salkiewicz, Ian Smith. Dean Capper from the School of Music continues his work with the Irwin Spector collection, and James Collingsworth is back for a second year as our Columbus Alternative High School intern. We remain grateful to our wonderful volunteers: Barb Yost, Chuck Moulton, K Adamson, and Joey Thomas.
We wish you wonders for the coming year.
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"Theatre is the universal means of expression. It embraces all of the arts through which human minds seek to reach one another."
Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee - November, 1986
