Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Seventh Rule of Archiving: Be Persistent



"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
                                ~ Benjamin Franklin

You and your cast and crew worked hard. That work is important. Every reading; every benefit; every production is a step in the evolution of your company, the artists involved, the Off-Off-Broadway community, and the theatrical art form itself. Be steadfast in your commitment to archiving your work.These records demonstrate the vital role OOB has in the theatrical ecosystem of NYC and beyond and your activities contribute to this moment in our artistic heritage.



Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Sixth Rule of Archiving: Storage & Preservation Materials

Ensure that the products you are using to preserve and label your artifacts will extend the life of your collection and not actually contribute to its deterioration. We've all seen photos or news articles have have faded, become discolored or deteriorated. How and where you preserve and store your archive will determine how well it will weather the elements and passage of time.

Check out this great post by Jill Davis, Founder of Scrapbook.com - Fourteen facts every scrapbooker should know. (I know we are not scrapbooking, but the information she provides is relevant to archiving)

  1. Make sure digital files are backed up regularly. Of course you'll want to have files available on your computer, but if the hard drive fails, those files will be lost. Saving files to the cloud or online storage is great, but don't rely solely on a third party server. You never know when the company may discontinue services - or heavens forbid are the victim of a hacker or virus. Having files on a computer, backed-up to an online storage site and saved to an external drive or CD that is stored with any physical files is an excellent, all-bases-covered, back-up policy.

  2.  Physical files should be stored in dry, cool places that are out of the sun. Moisture, sunlight and extreme temperatures will destroy memorabilia.

  3. Most adhesives will damage photos or paper. Avoid using adhesives when possible, however if it is necessary look for "archival safe" or "acid-free" adhesives.

  4. Store files in sturdy file cabinets or boxes with lids (that are clearly labeled on the outside). Files can be damaged or destroyed if they are crushed or exposed to dirt or moisture.

  5. Instead of photo albums, consider photo safe boxes made of polypropylene (some plastic boxes exude a vapor that is harmful to photos).

  6. Always use acid free materials including: polyester sleeves, paper, labels and even pens. Acid free means it has a pH level of 7 or higher. Look for "archival safe" or "acid-free" on the label when purchasing your materials. Other terms you should look for are: acid free, lignin free, or buffered

    Susan Luke from Paper Craft Central explains these terms:
    • Acid is a substance that dissolves things. It eats them away. Acid is added to paper to make it easier to write on. Unfortunately, this same beneficial acid can eat away at your photos over time. I have seen friend's photo albums where the photo itself has been eaten through and the picture even obliterated over time. In some older albums, the photo itself had protected the paper it was mounted on and not the other way around! If I want a photo to last into another generation, I choose "acid free lignin free buffered" scrapbooking elements.
    • Lignin is a substance that occurs naturally in wood. Paper is made out of wood. Lignin makes paper stronger. It is a biodegradable substance though so over time, it breaks down, turns brittle and changes colour to yellow and brown. If you have ever kept a newspaper article for a couple of years, you will know what I mean as it becomes very brittle and yellow. And newspaper is about 98% lignin free! I found some "acid free lignin free buffered" photocopying paper and I make sure I copy my precious newspaper articles onto it if I am going to put them in a scrapbook. I also make sure my other scrapbooking elements are lignin free if I want my project to last through the years without becoming brittle and yellowed.
    • When paper is Buffered it means an alkaline substance has been added to it to reduce the effect of the acid content in it. So buffered paper will be safer for your memorabilia. However, some people say alkaline substances can also weaken paper. Certainly there seem to be fewer buffered paper products out there on sale for use in scrapbooks. You can find them, though. (More commonly you just find acid and lignin free products. They are safer than products without these characteristics).


Monday, April 28, 2014

Document Your Productions in Theatre World

             

Since 1945, Theatre World has been documenting Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. It has been continually published for 69 years, offering the most comprehensive and definitive record of what is happening in American Theatre. It has become the leading archival resource that is referenced everywhere by scholars, students, casting directors, producers, and other industry professionals on a daily basis and is included in the Library of Congress.

The editors of Theatre World recognized the legitimacy of our community and felt that it deserved a place in this record. So in 2008 it began including Off-Off-Broadway.
 
It is so important that our community is represented when looking at the entire landscape of American Theatre. These books  bring to light the vital role this sector plays and demonstrates the number of productions, the variety, the innovation and the determination of the work being created in our community.  

We are currently collecting data about the 2013-2014 Off-Off-Broadway season. Please take the time to submit your productions for inclusion in this important record.

http://goo.gl/Mn56eF 


Please share this link with all of your OOB producer friends.  

Collection of this data is made possible by

https://www.nysca.org


Sunday, April 27, 2014

Fifth Rule of Archiving: Be Consistant

When you are preserving and cataloging information that you intend to file, search or filter it is important to be consistent in the type of information you are capturing, how it is recorded and how it is labeled. Consistency upfront will allow you easier and faster access to files and information later on.

  • Digital Files 
    • Consider the naming scheme for your files. For example, a file name that consists of: the year, month, day and then an appropriate unique indicative title(s) (20140405_Hamlet_Review.pdf), has several benefits. All files names that begin with the date will automatically be filtered chronologically in your system. You will also be able to glean key information just by looking at the file name; the date on which the review was published, the production in question, and that the file is a review. 
    • It is a good idea to organize all files for your 2014 production of Hamlet into one folder. However, do not fall in to the trap of relying on that folder for file identification.  For example the playbill document for Hamlet may be in the 2014Hamlet folder and titled, 'playbill'. However if at a later date you compile all of your programs and that file is moved from the Hamlet folder... you may run into some time consuming confusion; especially if all of your playbill documents are named 'playbill.'
  •  Physical Files 
    • An obvious first step is to decide on your filing system - alphabetical or chronological - and be consistent. 
    • When creating your file folders, place the labels in the same location on each folder. This convention makes it easier to quickly scan for relevant information as you thumb through the files.
    • If the physical file has a corresponding digital file, it is a time saver to include the digital folder name/path on the OUTSIDE of the file folder.
If you do have both physical and digital files for the same production, coordinating the naming conventions across the two mediums will help match information.
  • Checklist
    Off-Off-Broadway productions come in an endless variety and key details can vary wildly from one production to another. However where possible it is important to try to capture similar information for each production. In order to help create consistency and to prevent things from slipping through the cracks, create a checklist of common artifacts that you would like to include in your production files. If you are asking a volunteer or team member to help gather these artifacts, a checklist is an excellent tool to help them with their task.

Of course, this is an example, you will have your own set of items to include on your checklist.

TIP: Make sure that your dates follow the same format throughout your archive; i.e. May 1, 2014; 5/1/14 or 05/01/2014.
INCLUDE THE YEAR ON ALL DOCUMENTATION. (Trust me as someone who has been documenting OOB productions for the last six years, nothing is more frustrating than trying to figure out what year a production was performed.)

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Mayan Maps




"Archiving tells us where we came from.
   Your archive is as important as a Mayan pyramid."
                     ~ Robert Patrick, Playwright

Friday, April 25, 2014

Burning to Communicate: Part 2

Contributed by Frank Kuzler, DecadesOut

In 2009, my co-producer and wife, Jennifer Larkin Kuzler, an independent theatre artist herself, and some close friends started DecadesOut, whose mission is to contribute to the growing dialogue between art and science.

We decided to start documenting the people involved and start meeting new people who had perhaps never heard of off-off Broadway or independent theatre. So borrowing a phrase from the Living Theatre’s founder Judith Malina (“If you’re not burning to communicate, why do this? Get out of the way, and let the people who are do their jobs.”) the documentary Burning to Communicate was started. Then in 2010 we started work on the Awareness Project in which we interview people on the streets of NYC and ask them a series of simple questions that have to do with the off-off Broadway/independent theatre world in some way: Define a black box. If you could create one thing, what would it be? If you have a show running for four weeks under the showcase code with 6 equity actors, how many shows can you perform a week, and shouldn’t you be allowed to shoot video for marketing purposes since it’s 2014?

The results so far (and we have just scratched the surface) have been amazing. Over the last four years, we have had the opportunity to sit down with some of the artists who started this movement including  (just to name drop) Lanford Wilson, Doric Wilson, Judith Malina, and Edward Albee. They described textures of careers and historical landscapes that brought our country and the art form to greater life for me. I could see it all playing out visually: the personal or historical events that inspired the work, the creation of the pieces themselves. They welcomed us into their lives as all great artists do, sharing deep passions. Lanford Wilson brought us out into his garden where he described every flower in great detail including its latin genus and species. This is how a great writer’s mind works, I thought. This is what I was doing this for. Listening to these icons of American theatre tell their stories after having read and seen so much of their work as an audience member, student, and young artist was a humbling experience. This is why I wanted to make a film: to grow as an artist, share these moments and capture this history.

We missed some of the important ones though, LaMama's Ellen Stewart in particular. That was a tough one. We tried, but the timing was wrong, and she is sorely missed within the community. She left such a fantastic legacy though, and I am sure there are many people who will help tell that story.

From these, there are the people who got handed the mantle — the over 150 companies working in NYC alone. Companies such as Boomerang, Flux, Gideon, Retro Productions, Vampire Cowboys, Blessed Unrest, Terra Nova, and I am so sorry for the many that I do not have room to list from NYC, the USA, and the world.

It is through the theatre companies, the artists consistently producing new theatre, and the advocate organizations such as the League of Independent Theatre (LIT) and the Innovative Theatre Foundation (ITF) that the independent theatre community is galvanizing into a national cultural institution.

Thank you to all the people (artists and the ever important patrons and donors) who continue to keep it thriving. I believe live theatre — the original 3D dramatic experience, the closest artistic form to actually living the experience — will always be world changing.

Thank you to organizations like the Innovative Theatre Foundation who are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year for being a major element in the support of the new American theatrical life.

If you want to know more about DecadesOut or Burning to Communicate, please visit our website at www.decadesout.org.
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Frank Kuzler is the Executive Director and a Producer at DecadesOut. For the past fifteen years, Frank has been writing, directing and producing independent films, theatre and video. Most recently, Frank has been working on two feature length documentaries related to theatre: FringeNYC, the Film about the dynamic world surrounding the NY International Fringe Festival and Burning to Communicate about NYC’s independent theatre scene. DecadesOut is an organization dedicated to producing and supporting art that is inspired by science and science related themes.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Fourth Rule of Archiving: What to Keep

WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP?

As New Yorkers space is at a premium. Most of us do not have a basement or an attic or even an extra closet that we can dedicate to our company archives. So being judicious about what artifacts we keep is important.

When deciding what information to keep, ask yourself the following questions:
  1. How will the archive be used?
    You may be documenting your productions as a way of establishing a company history or providing a report to funders. Perhaps you are compiling information for a publicity campaign or research for an academic project. Maybe you want to inspire future company members or, maybe you are contributing your company information to a larger community-wide archive. Whatever the reason, each of these intentions require different pieces of information. For example, a researcher may not need press quotes, but a publicity campaign would definitely benefit from that resource.

  2. Who will be using this archive?
    This is sort of an extension of 'How' the archive will be used, but it is important to take into consideration that different people access information differently. For example you have a production photo. If the photo is going to be used by a graphic designer, you may need a digital file that is available in 72dpi and 300dpi. If the photo is going to be sent to a funder, you may need high a quality printed copy.

  3. Will this item/information have value or provide insight or be of relevance in the future?
    An audience member scribbles a note on the back of their program, "Great show. You should all be very proud." This is something that may not have a logistical place in your archive, but if the signature accompanying the note is Edward Albee's, this artifact may have a different kind of relevance. A small painting used as set dressing may end up getting donated to the Good Will unless the painting was contributed by Banksy, in which case there may be some value in keeping it.

  4. What does your gut tell you?
    Maybe that painting was not contributed by Banksy, but by your six year old nieces and you just have a strong personal connection to the piece. Or there is just something about that scarf from the third act. Gut reactions don't always have to be logical.

  5. What realistically will you be able to preserve?
    Deciding what to keep is one of the most difficult part of archiving. The unfortunate reality is that you will not be able to preserve everything. You may have had the most incredible giant paper mâché head, but you simply do not have the room to store it. Take lots of pictures and be at peace with the fact that you can only do what you can do.


Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Burning to Communicate: Part 1

Contributed by Frank Kuzler, DecadesOut

‘Independent’ or ‘Off-Off-Broadway’— Honestly, I like both. One is steeped in history and has attached to it that 1950’s Greenwich Village/East Village visual, the advent of a new American theatre which helped foment revolutions and create a place for the poetic and courageous voices who showed us that we could too. That time-worn term evolved eventually into the other where self-defined inheritors of the legacy continue to change the world through the landscape of theatre and decided to drop the label placed on the community by a contract code or the media. Some artists prefer no label at all.

The force — ignited in the late 1940's as a post WWII activation, sprouted strongly in the 1950s at places like The Living Theatre, Caffe Cino, La Mama, Theatre Genesis, Judson Poets — now stretches from the Village to Williamsburg, Bushwick, Astoria, the Bronx, Gowanus, Staten Island, Jersey City…. you get the idea. It has spread across the country and arguably the world.

However one describes their role, each needs to be innovative in their work and in their personal life. Today’s independent theatre artist willingly commits themself to a certain lifestyle and philosophy that can only be understood through the resolution and action of doing it. They view existence at night and weekends as their primary life, and their existence the rest of the time as a necessity to live another day when they will be able to create again. The commodity of the independent theatre world is human energy, the force of creativity and of course the audience’s experience of this kind of theatre. What results is a vibrancy and unique expression of the world that can not be rivaled by any other media, new or old, and that lifestyle of art and activism is infectious.

I caught the bug fifteen years ago, and I’ve had the pleasure of being part of the community as a writer, director, producer and now as a documentarian. I worked for many years with Tim Errickson, the Artistic Director of the Boomerang Theatre Company  — Boomerang recently celebrated its 15th anniversary which makes them a fantastic example of the commitment of the independent theatre community. I’ve worked closely with the NY International Fringe Festival to discover there another venue of intense love where committed volunteers and artists struggle each year to give international shows a home in New York City if only for 16 days and nights.

As I became more entrenched in the world, I became more and more fascinated by its history, and I wanted to explore the lure that had ensnared me. Why did I want to devote so much of my energy to this kind of theatre? Why did I feel it was so important to the cultural life of New York City and the United States? There was something in the collective unconscious and unspoken attraction that operated on a different level, and I wanted to find our more about it all. Without trying to pick the wings off the butterfly, there was a fascinating sociological element in the fact that this was a cultural movement of art and activism that has been growing for 50 years, driven by the burning need of these artists to speak to their world and fueled by their creativity. How and why had these elements come together to create this community and how could I help share it with that part of the world who didn’t know about it?

Let’s make a film, and use a phrase from an interview with Judith Malina and call it Burning to Communicate.

----------------------

Frank Kuzler is the Executive Director and a Producer at DecadesOut. For the past fifteen years, Frank has been writing, directing and producing independent films, theatre and video. Most recently, Frank has been working on the feature length documentaries related to theatre: FringeNYC, the Film about the dynamic world surrounding the NY International Fringe Festival and Burning to Communicate about NYC’s independent theatre scene. DecadesOut (www.decadesout.org) is an organization dedicated to producing and supporting art that is inspired by science and science related themes.


Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Third Rule of Archiving: Save the Original

SAVE THE ORIGINAL

Handset program from Mother Hubbard performed at the Caffe Cino
complete with hand drawing

Many times we want the public to only see the final, finished, polished product. However, there is value in the process and saving the original can be as informative as the completed item.

For example a final script is a wonderful item to include in an archive file for a production, but the rehearsal script might be just as important. It could include notes about characters or line changes that provide an intimate glimpse into the playwright's process. Handwritten notes between production staff might bring to light an amusing anecdote. These types of personal imprints make the collection much more immediate and accessible.

A designer may have created a piece that was then copied and reprinted for use during performances. While it is great to have the performance version, the original work with it's glued on pieces, whited out corrections and magic marker details can provide insight into how it was constructed and might show nuances that the reprinted version can not.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you never know how meaningful or valuable something might be down the road. Many props or backdrops for example, are in reality original works of art.

"We have show posters that were painted by people who weren’t even artists at the time but later went on to became very important."
                         ~ Ozzie Rodriguez, Director of the Archive at La MaMa

TIP: Make sure originals are clearly labeled as "ORIGINAL" to avoid inadvertently discarding or otherwise losing track of it.



Monday, April 21, 2014

Beginning the Dee-Davis Archives

Contributed by Arminda Thomas, Curator for the Ruby Dee/Ossie Davis Archives

Photo from the documentary Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee, courtesy of Muta'Ali Muhammad

I began working with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis in 1997. They were in the process of writing a joint autobiography to be published just ahead of their fiftieth anniversary, and I was brought in as a research assistant to help keep the dates and decades straight. I had assumed I would basically be living in the New York Public Library for the summer, but a couple of weeks into the assignment Ms. Dee suggested that I could find almost everything I needed in their home. She set up a temporary workspace for me in the basement and proceeded to have dozens of boxes and bags of newspapers, magazines, letters, clippings, programs and photos sent down for my perusal. Ms. Dee also thought it would be helpful if the materials were easily available to them in the evenings and weekends, so I began organizing it into binders and cleared some shelf space to store them. By the time the book was published, I had put together 32 binders that I was proud to call the Dee-Davis Archives. The Davises, also pleased, decided they might as well show me the rest of it. And I have been in the basement ever since.


In addition to its memory-jogging benefits, having the archives proved advantageous to the Davises in making accessible a more complete view of their legacy to the various organizations seeking to honor and award them, particularly in these later years. If retrospectives were going to happen anyway, it was important to Mr. Davis and Ms. Dee that they didn’t begin with A Raisin in the Sun and end with Do the Right Thing. The archives became a tool they could use to shine a light on some of the lesser-recognized productions, colleagues, and causes that they believed merited attention. With their history in hand, it was possible to share with those who came calling—through scanned material, a visit to the premises, or a virtual trip to their website (designed with the aim of giving context to their credits) and YouTube channel

Photo from the documentary Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee, courtesy of Muta'Ali Muhammad

The Davises were active on many fronts, artistically and civically, so I think it is worth noting that a significant amount of the archives reflects their lives as theatre artists and provides fascinating glimpses into New York’s various theatrical corners—on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in the libraries and in the union halls.  And in addition to the productions they took part in, we have over 400 programs and playbills saved from their own theatre-goings (some with their impressions noted on the covers). As a dramaturg, I have often felt that my job is one long amazing Continuing Ed program.

Photo from the documentary Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee, courtesy of Muta'Ali Muhammad

I began with basically no archival knowledge, and little I could find on the Internet to guide me. I was winging it, and while I believe the end results hold up pretty well, in some respects my ignorance is apparent. I say that not to flog myself, but to note that a novice in my position now has many more resources available. The American Theatre Archive Project (of which I am a member) has developed an archiving manual for theatre companies which I would heartily recommend to anyone faced with the task of organizing several decades—or even several months—of a theatre’s history.

Photo by Arminda Thomas
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Since 1997, Arminda Thomas has worked at Dee-Davis Enterprises as archivist, dramaturg, and literary associate. She served as executive producer and abridger for the Grammy-winning audio book With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (Hachette, 2006) and as in-house editor of Life Lit By Some Large Vision (Atria, 2006), a collection of Davis' speeches and essays.




Sunday, April 20, 2014

Tribute to Ellen Stewart


We want to thank Ozzie Rodriguez for sitting down with us and contributing so much insightful and helpful information to our blog this last week.

Ellen Stewart receives the 2005 Stewardship Award


"Artists have ancestors. We are on the shoulders of very talented, bold, fearless and important people. They have given you the license to create and it is your responsibility to take it further. That is the heirloom that they are passing down to this generation."
                                   ~ Ozzie Rodriguez, Director of the Archive at La MaMa

Applications are currently being accepted for the 2014 Honorary Awards. Help us recognize the amazing work, artists, companies, leaders, and champions that make up Off-Off-Broadway.




Saturday, April 19, 2014

Archiving Insights

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La MaMa, Ozzie Rodriguez

Ellen Stewart, Ozzie Rodriguez and Robert Patrick, in the Archive 1989

What is your favorite part of the archive?

Having a favorite item or thing in the archive is worse than having a favorite child. I arrived here as an actor, then became a director, then went on to found my own company, then went away and founded another company and then came back. My memories are entangled with so many things here. I can’t look at something without having a memory attached to it.

I put together a couple of videos of La MaMa as seen through Ellen’s eyes and I think maybe I’m the most proud of that work. I’m especially proud of them because they give you a much broader look at the organization and its evolution and how it influenced and was influenced by what was happening at the time. These clips put you there in the moment. You see Ellen in 1969 at the opening of the new La MaMa space and she jokes about the plumbing not being in yet and tells the audience that they could pay two buck and see as many shows as they wanted that week. It makes it very immediate. It captures those moments in a very real way. I know that every college in the world would like to have a copy of that video. I can’t give it to them because getting permissions from everyone involved wouldn’t be possible.

Having access to that resource however can lead you to other important movements. If, for instance, you wanted to see more about the Playhouse for the Ridiculous or Andrei Serban’s The Trilogy, you have a snippet of it in that collection that could whet your appetite for more information. You can say “Oh, I want to learn more about that.” And we have those files and you can look further into that and see how it was all put together.


What advice would you give theatre artists starting their own archive?


My advice to people who are starting archives is do the best you can, but understand you’ll have to let go of some things and you’ll be able to keep some things. Ellen was indiscriminate in preserving as much of what she thought was valuable; to her credit. However, knowing what to keep and what to get rid of is extraordinarily difficult and it becomes more and more difficult.

We don’t need fifty copies of a program. We can use five in a physical file and one digital copy on the computer that everyone has access to. However, the original artwork for that program may have been done by somebody who later on became an important artist. So that kind of thing becomes relevant. You have to be both judicious and careful.

Identification is important. For our earlier work, there are not that many people around any more who were a part of it. I can call Robert Patrick and send him a photograph and say, “Who are these people.” He was there so he knows, but I am losing those kinds of resources quickly.

Archiving for the theatre is extraordinarily difficult because you have so many tangents. You know, theatre is not one art form, it is every art form. La MaMa is all inclusive in many respects. We have dance and poetry festivals, we have celebrations of plays…. it adds up to a humongous amount of information and there is not one universal way to document all of that.

I guess my advice is, be persistent and do the best you can.


What is next for the archive?


At the end of every season there is an avalanche of material that comes down to the archive. This is an ongoing situation. It’s never going to end. We’ll never be the library for the performing arts because we don’t have that kind of an endowment. If and when that does happen, we are prepared to allocate funds to preserving the most fragile artifacts. In the meantime, we are preserving and presenting what we can.

The steps that we are taking now are that all of our records are being saved on a hard drive that can be accessed remotely by the public.

I don’t know where it ultimately is all going, but we are striving to keep it going. We feel we have something extraordinarily valuable; not only educationally valuable, but culturally valuable.


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The La MaMa Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La MaMa E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.


Interview conducted by Shay Gines

Friday, April 18, 2014

The Message of The Archive

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La MaMa, Ozzie Rodriguez


What is the importance of the archive?

We have a cabaret. We have three theatres; two smaller ones and one large one. We have seven floors of rehearsal space. We also have a gallery and a reading series. We have touring companies. All of these things needed to be documented. Not only are we recording the history of the company, but we are chronicling the development of the artists and Off-Off-Broadway theatre and how all of that influences American culture and contributes to our shared history.

You know we started at a critical moment. We started at the nexus of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the rise of feminism, and we had the gay liberation movement all happening simultaneously. It was not accidental that Off-Off-Broadway was born from that. There was no place in commercial theatre to discuss these topics. La MaMa and Off-Off-Broadway have always been a reflection of the time.

For the first time artists were given the platform to address the ideas of the day and to experiment. Commercial theatre only presented traditional, familiar fare. The disenfranchised artists were the ones reflecting what was really happening. In the 1960’s La Mama had women directors and women playwrights, which did not exist at major commercial theatres at the time. You had playwrights suddenly deciding to incorporate sound or dance or poetry. There was nothing to lose. There were genuine experiments to find a different way to communicate with the audience.

There was a time when putting comic books on stage was a trend and that was something that started in the Caffe Cino by Robert Patrick. “What do we have this evening? We’re going to enact this comic book.” The very idea that you could do that and infuse a serious, creative, theatrical presentation with pop culture was groundbreaking. That kind of freedom gave license to things like performance art and one innovation inspired the next. Playwright Patrick went on to write Kennedy's Children.


Tom O'Horgan and Ellen Stewart circa 1968

Tom O’Horgan use to host happenings. When we arrived, we each got an instrument and we all played. Somebody rang gongs and somebody hit bells. He had tapped into the energy of the time and those gatherings informed his work and became more formalized and eventually became HAIR, which revolutionized Broadway. When it opened in 1968, HAIR violated every commercial theater taboo that existed at that time. It was agitation propaganda. It included rock-and-roll for the first time on Broadway. There were no stars. It addressed issues like unwed mothers. It talked about black girls finding “white boys so pretty.” It was psychedelic and went in every direction and no one expected it to be a success, but it struck a chord that reflected that young generation. When that wave hit, it changed not only  Broadway, but the theatrical audience, which had become a staid and older demographic. HAIR appealed to a whole new young audience and destroyed the proscenium once and for all.

Something that La MaMa did right off the bat was to completely change the relationship between the audience and the performer. By virtue of the fact that the environment was what it was, the relationship with the audience had to change. We had brick walls because we were performing in tenements or lofts - before it was fashionable. Ellen looked at these spaces and saw what she could do as far as theatre was concerned. No one was thinking we were starting a trend. This is what we had. We did not need gold flocked angels on the ceiling or anything like that.

This was a time when it wasn’t about what you CAN’T do, it was more about HOW CAN you do this? And Ellen was fearless. I mean I equate Ellen with Isadora Duncan; with Martha Graham, Madame Curie. Just think, a black lady in the 60’s in New York, doing things that were literally unheard of at the time.

All of these events were literally historic and that is why the archives are so important.

We are losing a lot of our artists. I mean in the 1980’s we had devastating losses, but we have those artists work represented here in the archive. And because so many of them were instrumental in developing something new, it is even more important to have it cataloged and available to young people. The number of artists who we present is ever growing – it is growing exponentially. The more we produce, the more we do, the more of a responsibility we have to document their contributions and the contributions of La MaMa and the Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement.

Andrei Serban, the head of the School of Arts at Columbia University was one of our artistic directors. Ellen, Elizabeth Swados and Andre created The great Jones Repertory Company of La Mama.  Wilfred Leach, another of our artistic directors,  went on to get a Tony for The Pirates of Penzance and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Mary Alice Smith started here and received a Tony for Fences. Tom Eyen wrote Dream Girls. Harvey Fierstein wrote Torch Song Trilogy and currently has two Broadway shows running and is preparing a third. If they hadn’t had the freedom to explore and experiment and the opportunity to collaborate here, they wouldn’t have had those successes. There is a direct line and the archive demonstrates that. That inspires people and ultimately that is most precious thing the archive can do; inspire you not to give up, inspire you to follow your own dream, and inspire you to take the goddamn risk! Fall on your face. It’s okay. This is the place where you can. Fall on your face, pick yourself up and do it again and do it better this time. And really that is the message of the archive.

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The La MaMa Archives
is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La MaMa E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and is located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.

Interview conducted by Shay Gines

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Fully Realized History

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La MaMa, Ozzie Rodriguez


How do people use the archive?

It’s heartwarming to see the different ways that the archive is used and how the artifacts help to make the history more fully realized for people.

Every year we get scholars or people writing books about this community that can’t find the information that is essential to their endeavor.

We get students from all over the country and from other countries as well. I mean we will have a group from Montreal this week. In addition to people from Columbia, Fordham and NYU and Sarah Lawrence who visit, there are people from many cultures who are researching or seeking information. Some just want a general overview. Others are looking for something very specific. We did a thing on John Jesurun and Sam Shepard. We had two students, one from Brussels and the other from Russia. They were exploring the evolution of these two artists and their contributions to the contemporary theatre.

Ellen wanted the young people to have a hands-on grasp of how things developed. If you wanted to see Sam Shepard’s early work, you could look at his script and see his hand written notes and scribbling and everything else. She wanted that kind of availability. The more thorough and well rounded the education is for the student, the better off he is; the more choices he’ll have.

We have worked with so many international artists. There is a validation for those artists because they performed in New York and at La MaMa, which is known internationally, and it gives them a kind of credential that allows them to continue to develop their work. Being able to provide them with the documentation of their contributions is important to their artistic development.

By the same token, Ellen traveled widely and sought out a tremendous number of ancient techniques that she then introduced to American artists. We had artists from the Kabuki, from the Ramayana, from the Kathakali coming here to give workshops to the American actors. The American actor was growing in a way that was unprecedented, utilizing techniques that had here-to-fore not really been available to American artists because it was not a part of our education. There was nothing to be lost in being exposed to these influences and there was everything to be gained. We are able to show how these techniques were introduced and took root. In that way the archive demonstrates how the theatrical art form evolved.

There are also personal connections. We had a man here this morning who said, “My aunt was in a play at La MaMa in 1962. Can you tell me if there are any photographs of her?” That kind of connection is very interesting to me because, in a direct way we are responsible for the history of the artists who work with us and we contribute to their heritage and bare witness to their accomplishments. It shows that people still consider their time at La MaMa to be important and that their work here represents a milestone of sorts for them.

The greatest thing about this archive - and I am constantly rejuvenated by it and it does my heart good - is to see the same reaction from a 17 year old or a 70 year old. It is the same kind of awe. One could come from a school in New York and one could come from a country far away like Croatia. They are amazed by what they find here.

Theatre is an ongoing, living art. There is an evolution; without the work that we did, way back when, what’s happening now would not be possible. There is a lineage; a direct line. Through logistical information and the collection of artifacts, the archive demonstrates that lineage.

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The La MaMa Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La MaMa E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.

Interview conducted by Shay Gines

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Heirlooms of Off-Off-Broadway

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La MaMa, Ozzie Rodriguez

"Artists have ancestors. We are on the shoulders of very talented, bold, fearless and important people. They have given you the license to create and it is your responsibility to take it further. That is the heirloom that they are passing down to this generation."

How do you decide on what sorts of things to archive?

We will often ask ourselves, “What are we going to use this material for?” And that influences what we decide to preserve. Having this archive gives us a foundation for when we are applying for funds or when we are working with new collaborators. They can see how we developed and that we have a track record. We can pull these files and say, “Look, we’ve been doing this for many many years.” They can immediately see that we have a strong infrastructure, a backbone and a kind of strength. Its not that La MaMa is not known, but sometimes much of our work is taken for granted and the archive demonstrates the enormity of the work we’ve done. Also, Ellen foresaw that there was a time when our history and everything that she had accumulated would be relevant to the education of young artists and scholars. All of that informs what we preserve.

Our files contain all kinds of information and no file is the same. We definitely collect: programs, press releases, reviews, letters (personal and public), photographs, VHS tapes, CDs, articles from magazines, articles from magazines from other countries. You could find receipts. You could find corrections to texts. You could find personal correspondence written between the author and the director or between the director and Ellen. These items give you an incredible sense of the immediacy of the moment.

We have files for our tours – and we’ve been to over 50 countries – this is so incredible because the Resident Companies - some of them are based here in America and some are visiting - are all producing new works of art. We have records for all the tours.

We have show posters that were painted by people who weren’t even artists at the time but later went on to became very important. They slapped together collages because they had seen something from Basquiat or Warhol and decided, “Oh, I can do something like that.” These posters were supposed to last a week and were put outside of a basement door. No one thought, “This is art that will one day be important.” That’s what it became because it was an evolutionary time and we were all evolving. The archive helps to preserve that. It preserves that kind of immediacy. It’s an appointment in time aside from information that you could glean from a book.

Ellen received more awards than you can imagine and we have all of those. She wasn’t pretentious about all of this stuff. It had happened and she carried it with her, but the tangible proof of these things happening is the legacy that she passed down.

This is a living archive because our work is still going on. You can learn about La MaMa’s history here and then go upstairs and see the work that is currently being done.

We’re doing a series called the Coffeehouse Chronicles where some of the surviving original members of La MaMa and the Off-Off-Broadway movement come in and talk. We just did Richard Schechner and then we had Adrienne Kennedy, and then Elizabeth Swados. Through this series, the archive can capture their experiences and it becomes a part of our heritage. Artists have ancestors. We are on the shoulders of very talented, bold, fearless and important people. They have given you the license to create and it is your responsibility to take it further. That is the heirloom that they are passing down to this generation.

Ellen’s last, great project was this archive. We had the space and we were finally able to display all of the: costumes, set pieces, props, scripts, scores that she had collected. Every time we had a little larger space, she would find more things. Really, it’s remarkable. But she was thrilled to see it come to fruition.

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The La MaMa Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La MaMa E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.


Interview conducted by Shay Gines


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Archiving & Ever Expanding Technology

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La MaMa, Ozzie Rodriguez



What role has technology played in the work you’ve done with the archive?

There is this ever expanding technology and we are racing to preserve and to capture both current and historic performances.

La MaMa started a half of a century ago. You have to imagine a time when the phone was on the wall and you could not take pictures with it. There was no internet. You could not send selfies. You could not do tweeting. You could not do Facebook. All you could do was talk to one person on the phone. I'll say this to students sometimes and they look at me as though I’m talking about cavemen. It’s true. The Xerox machine was a godsend to all the playwrights because it meant that instead of having carbon copies or mimeograph machines that faded, they could make 25 copies of a script.

When the archive first started we had a computer that you wound with a crank, as far as I was concerned. The archive has always been the stepchild and we got hand-me-down technology. I’ve never had top-of-the-line, industrial equipment. But, with our first computer, I was able to make the first spreadsheet and start to organize things. When we got a slightly better computer, I was able to add more information and we become a little more sophisticated.

You never know what is coming next with technology. However, if the information is preserved now, then it can be transferred to whatever technology is coming down the pike and made available for future generations.

We have original art work and ephemera, scores, photographs, et cetera and all of that now needs to be scanned and digitized. It is a never ending process. Look, because we work in a living art medium, there is never going to be a homogenous situation in terms of the kind of media that theatre will generate or in terms of the kind of technology it needs to be transferred to. Unfortunately the archives’ ability to do this really depends on how well funded we are. We’re doing the best we can but, contemporary technology is continually newer and better and smaller. What is popular today may not be so useful in the future. For example, we have reel-to-reel videos, which at the time were an innovative way of capturing our work and those are becoming more-and-more expensive to save and salvage.

In the late 60’s / early 70’s a group of students from NYU came to La MaMa and said, “We’re shooting film / video about New York City, but the machinery is so heavy that we can’t just walk around with it.” So they wanted to shoot our shows. Ellen said “Yes, with two conditions (1) it can not be used for anything other than for your studies and (2) you give us a copy.” So we ended up videoing a lot of the early La MaMa works that were being performed in the late 60’s and 70’s.

Ellen opened the door to the possibility of filming those performances. If people like Tom Eyen or Sam Shepard, had something they could look at, they could improve upon it. Having a copy of a video was invaluable to playwrights who could scrutinize their work in a way that wasn’t available to them before. They could look at their own work and say, “you know, this one-act could be a full-length play” or “I could expand that idea because it was successful, but it needs more.” And I won’t even mention the value it was for dance and choreography where videos can be used to show or teach. The artists had this resource available to them so that they could improve or build upon their work. So this kind of documentation became very important to the people here at La MaMa.

And that has continued for many years. Now, Equity and other unions have rules against this, but those rules were not in place when we started. Once again we were at the forefront of using this medium that had not yet been employed by theatre artists and had not been codified.

As we grew, Ellen became more-and-more aware of the need to communicate on a global level. Many of our most important pieces suddenly required a presentation that was not based on the English language alone, but also needed sound and visuals to fully understand it and the recordings were invaluable for that. A lot of that is reel-to-reel and we are desperately trying to find a way to preserve that now.

We are in a process of digitizing everything to making it available online. The list of La MaMa productions on our website is growing; continually growing. That is an important resource, but I also think that the ever encroaching technologically creates gaps between generations, which I guess is inevitable. You have to be technically savvy to access many materials now. That is another reason I feel that the physical archive is so important. You can’t put everything in to a computer.

It is a constant question of how you can retain as much as you can. And you don’t always know the answer to that. You do the best you can with the tools that are available right now.


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The La MaMa Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La MaMa E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.


Interview conducted by Shay Gines

Monday, April 14, 2014

La Mama at the Forefront

An interview with the Director of the Archive at La Mama, Ozzie Rodriguez



When did the La Mama archive first begin and what was the reason it was initiated?

La Mama is currently in its 52nd season and the archive first started in or around 1966 when Ellen started documenting everything La Mama had done. Paul Foster, one of La Mama's original playwrights, made a list of all the plays that had been presented. Files for every show were being kept in order to justify the moneies that were being spent and to report back to funders. Also everyone started to become aware of La Mama and its cultural impact. So the initial beginnings were to document the growing influence of La Mama and to keep track of all of our work.

All of these files were kept in the office upstairs along with all the contracts and all of business works and everything else. We had a cabaret in the basement of La Mama and around 1987 the Buildings Department decided that that was not a suitable space for audiences. So we could no longer use it as a cabaret. One day Ellen asked me what I thought we should use the space for. I looked around and said, “Well, why don’t you make some room in the office upstairs by sending all the past records down here and we’ll call it The Archive.” At that point we had done about 1,460 original productions so it was a lot of material. She thought it was a wonderful idea.

I went off on tour – I think it was to Japan – when I came back, she had had all of those files for those years brought down and she asked me if I would curate it. I was a resident director for La Mama – I still am – so I would be around and so I said that I would monitor it. Having initiated it, she immediately started emptying out all of her closets, and things that were under the bed, and everything that she had saved for all of those years. And this included unbelievable amounts of things from all over the world because we’d been touring internationally. I had no idea of the kinds of things that Ellen had stored or where she had stored it; the ephemera, the costumes, the bits and pieces of information, et cetera that she had gathered.

We had a rudimentary computer. I thought, at least if I enter some of this information into a computer, I can search it. I can more easily look up when a show was done, what the title was, who the playwright was, who the director was, who the composer was, who the choreographer was, do we have a poster, do we have photographs? It was a very basic spreadsheet, but it was the best way to organize the material. Because the aim was - if someone needed to know all of the plays of Sam Shepard, or all the shows that Tom O’Horgan directed, or how much of Lanford Wilson and Marshal Mason’s work we had on record, you could sort the material and at least get an idea of the amount of work and have some of the details. You could get a picture of the evolution of things. If someone wanted to know when Bette Midler first appeared here, we could look up Tom Eyen’s Miss Nefertiti Regrets in 1964. Having access to that kind of information became very very important.

We had always been at the frontier of something; legally, illegally or by accident. Ellen was always at the forefront. We weren’t supposed to have an archive. No one had an archive. Theatres, especially of our size didn’t have archives. She did it because she was a visionary and she could see the value of it.


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The La Mama Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La Mama E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.

Osvaldo (Ozzie) Rodriguez is a native New Yorker. A Resident Director of Ellen Stewart’s La Mama Experimental Theater, since the early 1970’s, Ozzie has also been the Director of the La Mama Archive since 1987.  A bilingual playwright and actor, Ozzie is Founder and Artistic Director of two experimental theatre companies; Long Island’s first in 1973 and the Sol/Sun Experimental Theatre Company of San Antonio, Texas in 1981. His plays, written and adapted, include The Beauty and The Beast, The Phantom Ruin, Quincas / King of the Vagabonds, Alma /The Ghost of Spring Street, and Madre Del Sol / Mother Of The Sun, for which he received the Distinguished Contributions to Hispanic Culture Award. He has toured throughout the world as a member of the Great Jones Repertory and La Mama Umbria Company’s.


Interview conducted by Shay Gines

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Argument for Archives



"The great use of a life is
   to spend it for something that outlasts it."  

                 ~ William James, 1842-1910




Friday, April 11, 2014

The Archive at La Mama


La Mama was founded in 1961 and over the last 52 years has been a founding pillar of the Off-Off-Broadway community and often at the nexus of art, culture, society, and politics. Its fundamental development happened during a time of great revolution and creativity in the United States. It is not surprising that many groundbreaking artists began at La Mama and that La Mama continues to be a significant influence to artists here in the New York City as well as around the world.

Having witnessed so much history and being a part of an historical arts movement, La Mama has a unique and fascinating tale to tell. Since 1987 Ozzie Rodriguez has been the Director of the Archive at La Mama and has been crafting that inspirational tale.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ozzie and discussing his work. Over the next week, I will be presenting a series of posts based on the interview. His insight is quite illuminating the archive itself is awe inspiring.



The La Mama Archives is a not-for-profit organization sustained by La Mama E.T.C. The Archives are made available to the public as an educational service to the performing arts community, the press, scholars, historians, emerging artists, and students of theatre the world over. The Archives are open to the public Monday-Friday, Noon to 5PM and are located at 66 East 4th Street on the Mezzanine level.

Osvaldo (Ozzie) Rodriguez is a native New Yorker. A Resident Director of Ellen Stewart’s La Mama Experimental Theater, since the early 1970’s, Ozzie has also been the Director of the La Mama Archive since 1987.  A bilingual playwright and actor, Ozzie is Founder and Artistic Director of two experimental theatre companies; Long Island’s first in 1973 and the Sol/Sun Experimental Theatre Company of San Antonio, Texas in 1981. His plays, written and adapted, include The Beauty and The Beast, The Phantom Ruin, Quincas / King of the Vagabonds, Alma /The Ghost of Spring Street, and Madre Del Sol / Mother Of The Sun, for which he received the Distinguished Contributions to Hispanic Culture Award. He has toured throughout the world as a member of the Great Jones Repertory and La Mama Umbria Company’s.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Second Rule of Archiving: Identify Thoroughly

IDENTIFY THOROUGHLY

The first rule is to identify early because it is important to know/remember what the item is, but perhaps just as important is to identify thoroughly. Capture key identifying details.

Off-Off-Broadway productions come in an endless variety and key details can vary wildly from one production to another. So, having a standard set of identifiers that apply to all productions is not practical. However, if you start with the 5 W's of Research you're sure to cover your foundational bases.
WHAT is the item
WHAT was the title of the production
WHO was involved (WHO were the principal members of the production team and/or WHO completed this work and/or WHO is in this photograph?)
WHERE was this production performed
WHEN was this production performed

and if appropriate

WHY and/or HOW, which includes additional pertinent information about the item or production such as if it was the second play in a series or if it was a co-production with another company or that the set was constructed entirely of rubber bands.

Capturing this information at the outset is instrumental for organizing and later on, searching and retrieving information from your archive.

TIP: For each production, create labels with the fundamental details of the production that are distributed to all departments with instructions to affix them to all production artifacts.

Note: You should give thought to the kind of preservation materials you use. For example, acid-free labels and envelopes are available at most office supply stores.



Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Documenting An Elusive Art

Contributed by Tiffany Nixon


As a time-based art form, theatre is an elusive medium: each day there are nuanced changes in performance, variances in running times, spontaneous cast replacements, and a multitude of factors informing the experience. Archivists employed at theatre companies are concerned with these variables and tasked with cataloging an endless volume of documentation (production bibles, costumes, orchestrations, marketing, etc.). So while performance is inherently ephemeral, the material product of theatre is not.

Inside the Roundabout Theatre Archives with Rick, the Archives' Mannequin


Documenting Theatre

The role of the theatre archive is not to reproduce the theatre experience but to capture its essence. Archives provide evidence of the work for historic accuracy and scholarship, and offer tools to (1) examine production through objects and documents that embody the spirit of the piece and (2) understand institutions through departmental records that reveal operations in different regional areas, under different leadership, and in response to changing trends. We archive the material output of theatre because it is an extremely important cultural art form: through creation of company archives, we provide an invaluable resource for future generations to learn from and be inspired by our work.

Theatre production today relies heavily on traditional and non-traditional creation methods. We have to consider storing a fragile beaded dress and how best to tackle the ever-evolving changes in technology. Staying informed of best practices in permanent retention of all document formats is an ongoing challenge. You must be trained to know what to look for and how best to inventory/store it. In my work at Roundabout Theatre, I employ a collection policy and checklist that guides acceptance of incoming material and I work closely with staff and theatre crews to ensure that the documents created during a season are well represented in our collection. There is clear protocol directing storage and access, and the what/where/who of archiving informs every part of my work.

What Should Be Kept?
Documents and objects retained should accurately reflect your company’s mission and output; provide evidence of trends/styles in programming of dramatic works; and tell the story of your company’s place in theatre history. Saving photographs, playbills, and marketing flyers satisfies one aspect; saving costumes, performance reports, budgets, and all manner of departmental files satisfies an even larger aspect of your performance/institutional history. 
Tip: Create a checklist that departmental and stage staff use to identify significant documents. The checklist should cover all documents your company wants to permanently retain, and should be used with every production and at the close of each year. Items might include stage manager bibles, contracts, set/lighting/sound/costume designs, scripts, artistic files, photographs, video, fundraising and marketing campaigns, etc. Keep in mind - archiving requires consistency, order, and time. Make a commitment to maintaining your legacy documents.  
Roundabout Theatre Archives' costumes awaiting permanent storage

Where Should We Keep It?

Knowing where your archival documents are located significantly saves search time and supports access to documents that populate websites/social media sites, celebrate milestones, underscore fundraising, and serve reference. Ideally, archival documentation should be stored in an environmentally safe area (secure storage on or off site) and monitored regularly to maintain continued life.   
Tip: Wherever you decide to store archival documents, make sure they are well-inventoried and easily accessible. Storing documents at a distance from your company makes access costly and challenging, so consider access when you settle on a location. Store paper/textile based documents in sturdy boxes with lids, and don’t over-stuff boxes. Box contents should be well inventoried and clearly labeled. Keep a master contents list up-to-date and stored on a senior staff members’ computer. Digitally created documents should be aggregated on an archives-designated storage device and incorporated into company-wide back-up protocol with clear folder/naming conventions of digital files to provide information as to data/file contents (for instance: production name/season year/major campaign, etc.).

Who Are We Saving It For?
Theatre archives are created for staff and collaborators to provide a resource for in-house research and fact checking, and to support public outreach through display of archival photographs, video, etc. They also support future research by providing a glimpse into trends and styles of performance and performers, as evidenced on different stages and within different genres. Theatre doesn’t happen in a vacuum – the work of one company impacts and informs the work of others. Researchers of tomorrow will be interested in these exchanges and your archives will place your company within the larger historic theatre context.
Tip: Imagine yourself as a researcher 35 years from now. Which documents would you review, and how do the documents support your understanding of the work? Is it full-capture video? Costume bibles? Artistic files? When you’re retaining documentation, keep these questions foremost in your mind and build your archives around the notion of providing a discovery tool into your company’s legacy – the more historically accurate/all-encompassing the representation, the better.    
     
Roundabout Theatre Archives; posters, boxes drums

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Tiffany Nixon: Since 2008, Nixon has been the archivist for Roundabout Theatre Company, steadily documenting the company’s nearly 50 year history as a New York producer of Off-Off Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Broadway productions. She can be reached at tiffanyn@roundabouttheatre.org.


Monday, April 7, 2014

First Rule of Archiving: Identify Early

IDENTIFY EARLY

The first rule of archiving is to identify the item. Identify early. This might seem obvious, but identifying archive materials may not always be the highest priority in our lives. We all know how it is; you have a stack of productions photos sitting out ready to be labeled and scanned, but you have the production debrief and then auditions and you really just need a few days to decompress, and then you invite that cute girl to come over. You have to straighten up and all those photos or programs or scripts get stuffed into a shoebox and slid under the bed and before you even realize it, years have gone by before you rediscover the forgotten shoebox.

How many times have you looked at an old photo and were unable to remember the name of "so-and-so... you know, that guy with the nose..." As productions open and close, and people come and go, and time marches on, it becomes more and more difficult to remember who did what.  If you do not capture that information and record it early it can be lost. And the longer you wait, the harder it is to remember or to dig up the information later.
TIP: Consider including time for documentation in the production schedule and/or including an archivist on your company staff.
"For each production, I assign one of the cast members to be in charge of collecting information - a few programs, a set of headshots, a copy of the script, a press release, etc. It is all put into a manila envelop and labeled. Then after we close and everything has settled down, I can review it in more depth, but I know that the initial information is captured."





Saturday, April 5, 2014

Archives are the most precious assets



"Of all our national assets, Archives are the most precious; they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the extent of our civilization."

           ~ Arthur G. Doughty, Dominion Archivist