Manuscripts

General

Description: Includes correspondence regarding the library and its collections, 1956-1969; donor lists, receipts, and documentation, 1941-1968, including a souvenir program and typed summary of Honcho 24 Ko and several scrapbook pages containing ephemera; an application for a grant, 1968; inventories, reports, and statistics, 1950, 1962-1963, and undated; requisitions for books, manuscripts, playbooks, and supplies, 1960-1963; reference materials including bibliographies on costume, dance, folklore, and theater arts, plus a list of subject headings for various fields, 1945 and undated, and a general directory of artists, writers, and directors, 1930. Also includes curricular materials on cinema technique and the film industry, 1940 and undated, given to the Library by Fairfax Walkup.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1930-1969
Call number: mssPlayhouse
Creator: Pasadena Playhouse(Opens in new tab)

Theater history: costumes and fashion

Manuscripts

Contains Fairfax Walkup scrapbook pages on theater history, including fashion, costume, and dress.

mssPlayhouse

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Negatives: Various people and events

Manuscripts

Folders 1-5 contain negatives of photographs depicting Gilmor Brown and Charlie Prickett; Lenore Shanewise; various people in groups, from Fairfax Walkup files; and portraits of unidentified people. Folders 6-9 depict special events and festivities including a Pasadena Playhouse brunch; a buffet dinner on the set of What Every Woman Knows (1931); and unidentified special events, including possibly a Midsummer Drama Festival breakfast (undated).

mssPlayhouse

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Fairfax Walkup photograph album and scrapbook pages

Manuscripts

Contains a photograph album and pages of a scrapbook with photographs depicting students and student life; materials were compiled by Fairfax Walkup and dated 1928-1939, undated. Also contains a few loose photographs from Walkup's photograph album, possibly connected to a course she taught about costumes and costuming, plus one of an unidentified woman; two publicity photographs of a dance class, from 1956; one photograph of students in a dorm; and one photograph of students in an acting class, both undated.

mssPlayhouse

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Plays L-R

Manuscripts

Works include: Powers, Tom, Ladybug, Ladybug (undated); Kennedy, Belle Cumming, Lovely Miss Linley (master and production scripts; music and scenes; correspondence; production plots; clippings; program; and ephemera, 1942); Grant, James Shaw, The Magic Rowan (script, sound cues, property plots, and program, 1947); Rose, Billy, The Night They Made a Bum out of Helen Hayes (television script?, circa 1950); MacKaye, Percy, Odin against Christus (1948); Walkup, Fairfax, Orbit in Light (circa 1966-1969); Haney, Edith S, Pasadena Panorama (undated); and Kennedy, Belle Cumming, Rosemary – That's for Remembrance ([1957]).

mssPlayhouse

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Lenore Shanewise and Fairfax Walkup

Manuscripts

Materials relating to Lenore Shanewise include awards and honors; clippings and correspondence; performance and portrait photographs; programs from various productions; eulogies for Eugenia Ong (1955) and Gilmor Brown (1960); and some material from her service as a member of the Board of Trustees, including Task Force Committee reports (circa March 1966) and Board meeting minutes (1967). Materials relating to Fairfax Walkup include personal correspondence (1951-1971); her reflections on Gilmor Brown (circa 1960); resumes; and honors and tributes.

mssPlayhouse

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Pasadena Playhouse records

Manuscripts

The collection contains materials documenting the history and activities of the Pasadena Playhouse and its College of Theatre Arts. It includes approximately 15,000 photographs; 5,000 theater programs; 300 scripts; over 100 scrapbooks; 70 set and costume designs; and a few musical scores; as well as board meeting minutes; business records including ledgers, financial records, and correspondence; student catalogs, manuals, and yearbooks; curricular materials; newspaper clippings; theater periodicals; and various subject files. Also included are publications and business records from the Pasadena Playhouse Alumni and Associates, as well as a set of indexes (Series IX) and other research materials compiled by archivists at the Huntington Library (Series IVV). The materials date from approximately 1657-2013, with the bulk of the materials dating from the beginnings of the Playhouse in 1916 through its bankruptcy in 1969. Major areas of interest represented in the collection include the Playhouse Board of Trustees' meeting minutes and correspondence; correspondence and business records of Playhouse executives and administrators, including Gilmor Brown, Fairfax Walkup, and Lenore Shanewise; writings, photographs, scrapbooks, and clippings detailing various aspects of the Pasadena Playhouse's history; catalogs, photographs, and promotional and curricular materials documenting the School of the Theatre (later College of Theatre Arts), its students, and student life; performance photographs, theater programs, original set and costume designs, scripts and scores, and supplementary materials reflecting productions at the Playhouse's venues (Community Playhouse, Mainstage, Playbox, Workshop and Laboratory Theatres, Patio Theatre, and East and West Balcony Theatres) as well from various student, traveling, and special events productions; and the holdings of the Playhouse's library and museum. Along with Brown, Prickett, Walkup, and Shanewise, other key figures surfacing within the collection include Maurice Wells, assistant director of the Playbox; Charles Lane, actor in many Playhouse productions; Ralph Freud, a director at the Playhouse; Catherine Turney, a member of the School of the Theatre's first class who went on to become director of the Workshop; Dorothy Arzner, a filmmaker from the silent film era into the 1940s and cinema instructor at the Playhouse; Gail Shoup, a Playhouse staff director; Bobker Ben Ali, a writer and director whose productions included Manya: The Story of Marie Curie (circa 1938) and The People Win Thru (1952); Board chairs David Crandall and Earl Messer; and actors Maudie and Oliver Prickett, Charles Prickett's spouse and brother, respectively. The core records are strengthened by the complementary personal paper collections of directors, performers, and others associated with the Playhouse, including ben Ali; Graydon Spalding; Gail Shoup; and more (see Series VIII, Related Personal Collections). The collection features the work of photographers including Jerome Robinson, Jack Powell, Gordon Spalding, Kim Spalding, and A. E. Arnold, and the original set and costume designs of James Hyde; Jānis Muncis; Rita Glover, who was the first woman to be admitted to the Designers Guild of California; and Robert Redington Sharpe, among many others.

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Theater history: costumes and fashion

Negatives: Various people and events

Fairfax Walkup photograph album and scrapbook pages

Plays L-R

Lenore Shanewise and Fairfax Walkup

Pasadena Playhouse records