[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Avant-garde theater company records looking for a home



Colleagues,

I'd like to poll you listservers about an appropriate repository for the
records of an avant-garde theater company.

The Omaha Magic Theatre is an independent, not-for-profit performance
ensemble of artists collaborating out of Omaha, Nebraska.  Since its
beginnings in 1968, OMT has created and produced more than 100 interactive,
contemporary plays and musical theater pieces, and has won acclaim both
locally and through its national and international tours.  Its productions
combine drama, music, dance, visual art, and projected media.  OMT's efforts
have included publication of original plays, sponsorship of workshops and
seminars, and support of artist-in-residence programs.  It is one of the
longest-running community avant-garde theater companies in America, and is
still run by JoAnn Schmidman, the woman who founded OMT more than a quarter
century ago.  [For those who are interested, much of the OMT's activities
are chronicled in the book _Right Brain Vacation Photos: New Plays and
Production Photographs, 1972-1992_.  It's a local press item, but Amazon.com
can get it for you, not to mention interlibrary loan]

OMT has maintained its corporate records throughout its existence.  They
include original scripts, financial records (mostly tax- and grant-related
materials), photographs, video- and audio tapes of productions, files
relating to projects and productions, publications and ephemeral
advertisements, and various other corporate records.

While OMT's headquarters location certainly qualifies its records as fitting
into the Nebraska State Historical Society's collecting scope (and we are
indeed interested), we believe it would be more for the good of both the
materials and the researching public for the records to reside in a
repository that specializes in performing arts topics.   With that in mind,
I'd like to ask for suggestions.  I'm acting as the OMT's archival advisor
in this matter, so I'll pass any replies directly on to JoAnn.

Thanks, colleagues!

Paul J. Eisloeffel
Curator of Manuscripts and Audio-Visual Collections
Nebraska State Historical Society
P.O. Box 82554
Lincoln, NE 68501
(402) 471-4750
Fax: (402) 471-8922
E-mail: pje@inebraska.com
           pje@nebraskahistory.org
www.nebraskahistory.org

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>