Highlights of the Musical Theater Collections
at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts,
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has been an invaluable source of information for countless professionals and aspiring students in virtually all aspects of the performing arts: dancers, singers, actors, composers, choreographers, conductors, directors, set and costume designers, journalists, and historians. The Library operates, in large part, as a creative laboratory for performing artists, which is reflected in the collections. Artists draw inspiration and direction from the materials to create their work, and the documentation of their process becomes part of the collections. The Library is a free and inviting source of information on the performing arts for amateurs and interested members of the general public as well.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gives the public a private audience with more than nine million items, spanning seven centuries, from every corner and concern of the worlds of dance, music, and theater. Exceptional archives such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, set, light, mechanical, and costume designs, scripts, press clippings, programs, posters, personal effects, and photographs constitute a full 70 percent of the Library's research holdings. In addition, the largest circulating collection in the world devoted to the performing arts (including books, periodicals, sheet music, compact discs, videotapes, and DVDs) is freely available for borrowing.

Musical theater is represented in a vast and varied assortment of circulating materials as well as in thousands of treasures held in the Library's four research divisions: the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, the Music Division, The Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound.

Personal & Professional Archival Collections
The Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, John Kander and Fred Ebb collections will be welcomed into the company of many other greats of the musical stage whose personal and professional archives are already part of the Library's holdings. Among them are: Abe Burrows (director/librettist); Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyricists/librettists); Cheryl Crawford (producer); Dorothy Fields (composer/lyricist/librettist); E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (lyricist); Victor Herbert (composer/lyricist/librettist); Edward Kleban (lyricist); Beatrice Lillie (composer/performer); Frank Loesser (composer/lyricist/librettist); Jo Mielziner (set designer); Agnes de Mille (choreographer); Zero Mostel (actor); Joseph Papp (producer); Harold Prince (director/producer); Jerome Robbins (director/choreographer); Richard Rodgers (composer/producer); Billy Rose (impresario); Michael Stewart (librettist); Sophie Tucker (performer); Florenz Ziegfeld (producer/director/impresario); and many others.

Musical Scores
Recently acquired original manuscript and manuscript reproduction scores include, in full or in part: Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town; Cy Coleman's Barnum; George Gershwin's Oh, Kay!; Marvin Hamlisch's A Chorus Line; Charlie Smalls's The Wiz; Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle; and others.

Sound Recordings
In addition to a comprehensive collection of published musical theater recordings on 78 rpm, LP, and CD, the Library's archives include unpublished "live" recordings, interviews, demo recordings, working tapes, etc. in the collections of Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, E. Y. Harburg, Michael Stewart, Al Carmines, Otto Harbach, and Carolyn Leigh, as well as interviews with many composers, lyricists, and musical theater performers.

Videotaped Recordings of Live Musical Theater Productions
The Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) has been filming and videotaping live theatrical productions since 1970, and has also acquired relevant historical film footage. A sampling of its collection of more than 2,500 shows includes: Cabaret; Cats; A Chorus Line; Company; Contact; Falsettos; Fiddler on the Roof; Jelly's Last Jam; The Lion King; My Favorite Year; Phantom of the Opera; Sunday in the Park with George; Sunset Boulevard; Sweeney Todd; The Who's ‘Tommy'; and excerpts from several Rodgers and Hart musicals including A Connecticut Yankee, I Married an Angel, Pal Joey, and Too Many Girls.


The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is one of four great research centers of The New York Public Library. The others are the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at 135th Street and Malcolm X Blvd., and the Science, Industry and Business Library at 34th Street and Madison Avenue. There are also 85 branch libraries that serve the local communities in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. For more information on The New York Public Library, please visit www.nypl.org.

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Contact: Nancy Donner, Herb Scher, or Lindy Regan at 212.704.8600.


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