Tuberdyck, Michael R Tuberdyck, Michael R, photographer
Published / Created:
[197-?]
Call Number:
YCAL MSS 538
Collection Title:
Michael Bennett papers
Container / Volume:
Box 63
Image Count:
2
Description:
In ink verso: (In foreground) Helen DiFiglia, Salvatore DiFiglia, Michael Bennett, and Mayor of Buffalo, N.Y.(?) / A Chorus Line playing Buffalo, N and Label verso: Zowie Photo / Michael R. Tuberdyck / 132 Slade Ave. / West Seneca, N.Y. 14224 / (716) 892-7433
Subject (Name):
Bennett, Michael, 1943-
Subject (Topic):
Choreographers, Musicals, and Theatrical producers and directors
The collection consists of correspondence, scripts, contracts, photographs, a production program, press clippings and other materials documenting the script development and production history of John Charles Brownell's play, Mississippi Rainbow. Correspondents include Rowena Woodham Jelliffe of the Karamu Theatre, Playhouse Settlement, Cleveland; Frank J. Sheil of Samuel French Play Publishers and Authors' Representatives; Richard Madden of the Richard J. Madden Play Company; staff members of the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Theatre Project in New York and Chicago, including Shirley Graham (later Shirley Graham DuBois), Thomas J. McElhany, Bennet R. Finn, George Kondolf, and Hallie Flanagan; Theodore Ward, an actor in the Chicago production of Mississippi Rainbow, and an aspiring playwright whom Brownell mentored; New York theater critic Brooks Atkinson; and other correspondents from whom Brownell sought financial and professional assistance. Undated typescripts for Mississippi Rainbow and a one-act play, The Closet, are also included. Photographs include portrait photographs of Brownell and production photographs from the New York production of Brainsweat and the Chicago production of Mississippi Rainbow
Description:
John Charles Brownell was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1877. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City, and worked as a professional actor and scenario editor for film companies before undertaking a playwrighting career. His plays include The Nut Farm, Her Majesty the Widow, and A Woman of the Soil. His play Mississippi Rainbow, a comedy written for an all-black cast, was first produced as Nothin' but Trouble by an amateur cast at the Karamu Theatre, Playhouse Settlement in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934. The play went through rewrites and title changes, and was produced on Broadway as Brainsweat (1934), and by the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago as Mississippi Rainbow (1937). He was married to Estelle Wyne of Cincinnati. Brownell died in Starksboro, Vermont in 1961. and In English.
Subject (Geographic):
United States.
Subject (Name):
Atkinson, Brooks, 1894-1984., Brownell, John Charles., Du Bois, Shirley Graham, 1896-1977., Finn, Bennet R., Flanagan, Hallie, 1890-1969., Jelliffe, Rowena Woodham., Kondolf, George., McElhany, Thomas J., Sheil, Frank J., Ward, Theodore, 1902-1983., Federal Theatre Project (Chicago, Ill.), Federal Theatre Project (Chicago, Ill.). Negro Unit., Federal Theatre Project (New York, N.Y.), Playhouse Settlement (Cleveland, Ohio), Richard J. Madden Play Service., Samuel French, Inc., and United States. Works Progress Administration.
Subject (Topic):
African American actors, African American theater, Dramatists, American, Literary agents, Theater, Production and direction, and Theatrical producers and directors