Contains typed notes, in many cases on index cards, on the importance of theater, the place of art in the commercial world, and the history of the Playbox Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse. Also includes some programs and playbills featuring Brown; various scrapbook pages; and articles, clippings, and a booklet about Brown. Also contains list of A. E. Arnold negatives of Pasadena Community Playhouse; and notes for speeches.
Subseries A (Community Playhouse and Mainstage productions), Subseries B (Playbox productions) and Subseries C (Mainstage, Playbox, and Gilmor Brown) are from a collection previously known as photCL 327 or Album 327, compiled from the scrapbook series set described in Series II.
Items 10890-10969 and 10979-10981: Various views of interiors, undated. Items 10970-10978: Playbox interior and exterior views, 695 Herkimer Street, undated. Items 10982-11066: Gilmor Brown, circa 1888-1960, including portraits of Brown as a youth and in various roles, among them as part of pre-Playhouse companies such as the Gilmor Brown Players; depictions of Brown with others, including at a New York Pasadena Playhouse Alumni Associate Breakfast (1956) and with Charlie Prickett, Victor Mature, Dana Andrews, Robert Preston, and Murray Yates; and images of Brown speaking, rehearsing, and traveling.
Contains oversize programs for Pasadena Community Playhouse, 1927-1937. Also includes programs for the Playbox, 1931-1962, and the Mainstage, approximately 1937-1941 and 1960-1961.
Contains two scrapbooks, one originally belonging to Playbox director Maurice Wells, and one containing clippings, tickets, fliers, and other ephemera about the community theater movement in Pasadena, Hollywood, and San Francisco about the Pasadena Community Playhouse.
Includes publications concerning the Little Theatre movement that feature the Pasadena Community Playhouse: Little Theatres (New York Drama League, December 1923), with an article on Gilmor Brown; The Little Theatre Magazine (January and November 1933, and February 1934), with photographs and news concerning the Playhouse and its activities; and Little Theatre Arts (February 1937). Also contains serials published by the American National Theatre Association (ANTA), 1960 and 1969; and individual issues of titles including American Theatre Magazine (March 1940); Fink's Magazine (April 1908); The Play Pictorial (1905?); The Playgoer (1939, 1941, 1954, undated); Script (Rob Wagner, September 1943); The Theater (1887-1890); Theater and School (January 1936); The Theatre Annual (1943, 1944); Theatre in Education (April 1951); Theatre Magazine (1924, 1926-1928); Theatrical Times (1846, 1847, 1849, undated); and The Theatergoer (1942, 1945, 1946, 1948). Also includes periodicals concerning general topics, such as the Pasadena Lens and TAB (weekly entertainment guides, 1960) and Survey Graphic (1946), and music (The Concertgoer, 1951).