NEWSLETTER OF THE THEATRE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION Vol. 28, No. 2-3 TLA's 63d Annivenaw Year Fall 2000-Winter 2001 I A Call to ~ctiond In preparing to assume our new responsibilities performing arts collector. Only one as President and Vice-president, we have officer is a librarian with a traditional conducted a critical assessment of our institutional affiliation How can association and we are concerned with what we TLA's varied membership be tapped see. Personal memberships are down. We seem a$ a source for new ideas and unable to attract a significant number of new initiatives? members and our old members are slipping away. Fewer and fewer people are willing to TLA-a ~roactiveoreanization! serve on committees, help plan and produce TLA has operated more as an programs, write for Broaukide, and engage in affiliate to other professional other activities that have been the lifeblood of associations than as a strong, TLA. Perhaps it is time to take a serious look at independent organization in the past who we are and why we exist. several years. Yet our programming at recent ALA and ASTR conferences has This sounds dour but that is not our intention. never been stronger. At November's Rather, we propose to revitalize TLA by ASTR conference in New York, our assessing what it is that makes us unique and program, "The Deconstruction and gives us a wtionale to propel us into the 21st Reconstruction of 42"d Street" hosted by century. Here's what we see: archivist-historian Mary Henderson, and featuring presentations by key 1. members hi^ players in the redevelopment of the We are a group that shares Times Square area, proved a highlight common interests NOT common of the three-day event.We have reached professions. We all are passionately out to the Music Library Association interested in the performing arts and the (MLA) to explore ideas for joint preservation of its history. We are all programming and other initiatives. avid and hquent attendees at theatre, How can we build on these successes dance, music, film, and other and make TLA proactive rather than performance events. We all care about reactive? cont. on pp. 2 the collection, reservation, and use of performing arts materials. Our professions are varied. We are IN THIS ISSUE libt.arians, archivists, curators, scholars, Editor's Note-pg. 2; TOFT Founder perfarmers, academics, historians, Retires-pg. 3; NYPL Welcomes New collectors, practitioners, and students. Executive Director-pg. 4; TLA's current slate of officers reflects Conference Reports--pg. 4; our varied membership, and includes an Upcoming Conferences-pg. 11; academic who is also a director1 Meeting Minutes-pg. 12; Election historian, a freelance researcher and Results-pg. 17; Book News and archivist, and an attorney who is also a Reviews-pg. 19; Regional News- pg. 24; Member News-pg. 27; In Memoriam-pg. 28 EDITOR'S NOTE involved. Thesc measures have proven I am delighted to have the privilege of being only moderately successful. the editor of Broahide. I look forward to What more can and should we do to receiving your articles and expanding our become a truly national association? coverage with our new Regional News don. I welcome your ideas and will 5. TW conferences. gladly accept reviews of electronic resources Other than our wonderful annual book in addition to books. EUen Truax awards (STILL one of our stellar [email protected] ewents!), our only programming in the past few years has been at a€liliate confemccs. We advocate that TLA 3, Publication-and vour sponsor a major conference every 5 to contributions. 10 years that addresses the particular Difficulties in meeting our annual interests of our membership. Naturally, obligation to publish Peqonning Arts we would invite patxipants fiom our Resources (PAR) have forced us to affiliates as well as others interested in make it an occasional publication We engaging in our topic. We devised this finally have two exciting issues together theme for our first conference: "The and coming out in 2001. Our former Documentation and Recreation of Broadside editor, Nancy Stokes, did a Performance." We tlunk this would be great job of revitalizing the newsletter. enticing to all TLA members, many We now have a dynarmc new editor, ASTR, ALA, and MLA members, and Ellen Truax. But Ellen needs input, certainly theatre, dance, music and other ideas, and solid contributions from performance professionals who are members to keep Broadside a going engaged in major revivals (The City concern. Too often in the past a few Center Encores! series, Martha Graham people have taken on the lion's share of Dance Company, the creative team that duties just to keep the organization devised Fosse, and others), or those afloat. Will you take up the challenge creating new work from archival to propose cmative ideas for sources and/or oral histories (such as publications- and then work to carry Moises Kauffman, creator of Gross them forward? Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project, and 4. TLA- a national oreanization. Anna Dweare Smith). This conference For a long time, TLA was New York- could also serve as the foundation for a centric, or at least east coast-focused. publication of conference proceedings. We have tried hard in recent years to We propose that it be held in New York expand our purview to all of North City, to take advantage of any America by actively seeking executive appropriate productions going on at the board members from throughout the time, and in February, to take advantage U.S. and Canada We also have just of low hotel rates. Since it would take formed a group of regonal "stringers" at least three years to properly plan and who will report performance and produce such an event, we recommend archivesflibrary news from their area of mounting this in either 2003 or 2004. the country. Finally, we have begun Do you like this idea? Would you like holding one of our three Executive to serve on the planning team? Board meetings (to which ALL members are invited!) in conjunction For TLA to reach its full potential as a dynamc with the ASmAannual conference and meaningful professional association requires which is held in a different city each the contribution of all its members. Please give year to encourage local members-and us your thoughts on the issues we've raised. Or potential new ones--to become more raise other issues! We invite you to email either or both of us and share your ideas: Vo1.28, No. 2-3 Fall 2000Minter 2001 kwinkl&n~~l.org always "Betty" to her colleagues -had been an mlomonac@fair 1.fairfield.edu assistam to theatrical producers, work she greatly TLA's listserv is another great venue for this enjoyed, but which she chose to iem behind in conversation: [email protected] favor of family life. It was only when her In the meantime, we extend our waxmest wishes children were young adults, and when videotape for a happy holiday season and terrific New technology was sufficiently sophisticated for the Year. May 2001 hdd a new beginning for task, that Betty felt ready to pursue the goal of TLA I systematically phnglive productions. She With all best wishes, pitched the idea to Performing Arts Library Kevin Winkler, Presidentelect Director Thor Wood, who was interested but had Martha LOMonaco, Vice-Presidentelect no funding to offer, merely "a desk, a phone, and three months to try and make sometlung TOFT FOUNDER RETIRES AFTER happen." Betty soon found that her most DEVELOPING VAST REPOSITORY formidable challenge would be to convince the Throughout the centuries and throughout the trade union rep-ntatives and other interested world, one constant element of every stage parties that these videos would never be performance has been its perishability; once the televised, would never become commercially show is over, the sets are struck, and the actors available, and that they would always remain have removed their stage costumes and departed, under the close supervision of the TOFT the shared event leaves no more lasting record Archive's staff. After two-and-a-half years of than does a candle after its flame has been complicated union negotiations, the major extinguished. Just as wisps of smoke linger over hurdles were cleared, and taping commenced in the candle, the memory of the performance November 1970 with The Golden Bat, a lingers for a time in the minds of those who Japanese rock musical performed in both participated as cast, crew, and spectators, and Japanese and English. Also launched in this then, like smoke, this too vanishes. period was a series of 'dialogues', interviews recorded for posterity with such luminaries as In the late 1960s, however, this seemingly George Abbott, &chard Rodgers, Uta Hagen, immutable fact of theatrical life began to change. Stephen Sondheim, Liza Minnelli, and many It was in 1%9 that Betty L. Convin founded the others. Some 230 of these inte~ewshave been Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT),now taped, with more to come. It is more than a little a permanent part of the Billy Rose Theatre ironic, considering the institutional resistance Collection of The New York Public Library for Betty faced in the Arcluve's eariy years, that the Performing Arts, a repository for well over theatre professionals have come to routinely rely 4,000 video recordings of stage performances upon this valuable tool when researclung their and related items of all kinds, and a priceless ohongoing projects. Examples of &s are treasure trove for researchers and historians. numerous, but include Stephen Sondheim and About 2,450 of these titles are performance James Lapine expandmg their one-act version of videos made by TOFT specifically for the Sunday in the park with George, videotaped by Archive, capturing productions of Shakespeare, TOFT at Playwrights Horizons, into the full- Beckett, Greek tragedy, musical comedy, serious length, Pulitzer Pnze-winning Broadway drama, farce or the indefinable what-have-you.