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UNCOVERING GEMS: THEATRICAL DESIGN COLLECTIONS AT THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2009

Extract

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR), which is housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, and partners the historical society with the University of Wisconsin's Department of Communication Arts, was formed in 1960. It maintains a diverse collection of entertainment media, including collections of papers, audio and/or visual materials, and other creative documents such as scripts and designs. The majority of the WCFTR's collections feature film, radio, and television productions and various photographs and promotional material. The smaller theatre collections include papers related to notable actors and playwrights such as Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Moss Hart, Langston Hughes, and George S. Kaufman; lyricists and composers such as Marc Blitzstein and Stephen Sondheim; and designers for film and theatre. This article examines the WCFTR collections of three twentieth-century theatrical designers: Wolfgang Roth, Jean Rosenthal, and Gilbert Hemsley.

Type
Re: Sources: Edited by Nena Couch
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2009

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References

Endnotes

1. Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, the Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706-1417, (608) 264-6460.

2. “History of the WCFTR,” Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, available online at www.wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/about/history.html (accessed 14 May 2009).

3. ArCat can be accessed through the WCFTR's Web site at www.wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/search.html (accessed 14 May 2009). The ArCat Search Hints link provides helpful step-by-step searching instructions; see http://arcat.library.wisc.edu/help/aboutarcat.htm (accessed 14 May 2009).

4. Wolfgang Roth résumé, March 1967, Box 4, Folder 11, Wolfgang Roth Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.

5. Additional Roth materials documenting Porgy and Bess are at the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

6. Roth, Wolfgang, “Working with Bertolt Brecht,” Brecht Today: Jahrbuch der Internationalen Brecht-Gesellschaft 2 (1972): 131–5Google Scholar, at 132, Box 4, Folder 8, Wolfgang Roth Papers.

8. Ibid., p. 133.

9. Wolfgang Saxon, “Wolfgang Roth, a Stage Designer for Plays and Opera, Dies at 78,” New York Times, 14 November 1988, available at www.nytimes.com/1988/11/14/obituaries/wolfgang-roth-a-stage-designer-for-plays-and-opera-dies-at-78.html?sec=;&spon=; (accessed 30 March 2009).

10. Rosenthal, Jean and Wertenbaker, Lael, The Magic of Light: The Craft and Career of Jean Rosenthal, Pioneer of Lighting for the Modern Stage (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), 12Google Scholar.

11. Ibid., 13.

12. Ibid., 24.

13. Register of the Gilbert Hemsley Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, 25, available at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=;wiarchives;view=;reslist;subview=;standard;didno=;uw-whs-us0178an (accessed 14 May 2009).

14. Gilbert Hemsley Journal, 1975, Ballet series, Box 33, Folder 7, Gilbert Hemsley Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.