NYPL’s Betty L. Corwin: Fighting the Odds to Pursue the Dream of Preserving Live Theatre
In honor of Women's History Month, the Library is taking a look back at some of the remarkable women who changed The New York Public Library—and the field of librarianship—forever with our new series, Foreword: Women Who Built NYPL. Each week this March, we will be sharing reflections from our current staff on how the impact of these trailblazing figures from the Library's 125-year history are still felt today.
Portrait of Betty L. Corwin. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 58211471
About Betty L. Corwin
When Betty Corwin first proposed the idea of a program to document live theatre, the Library gave her a telephone and permission to move forward only in a volunteer role. Thanks to her dedication, vision, and masterful negotiating skills, Corwin not only became a full-time employee, but she created the world-renowned treasure trove known as the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. She served as its curator for 31 years.
Betty L. Corwin’s Legacy
Reflection by Patrick Hoffman, Director and Curator, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive
Betty L. Corwin revolutionized theatre history and research. That is no small statement, but undeniably true.
I had the great privilege and fun of working with Betty as her Assistant Director of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) for nearly a decade. I know Betty would be very proud to be among those honored during Women’s History Month, as she was an unwavering champion of women.
She, herself, came into her own during the feminist movement of the early 1970’s. Like many women before her, she gave up her career entirely to marry, move to Connecticut, and raise a family of three children. It was what was expected of women in 1943. She had been working in the offices of theatrical producers Carly Wharton and Martin Gabel and remembered it as the most exciting time of her life. So decades later, in 1969, when her children were grown and moving on with their own lives, she decided she wanted to reenter the theatre world in some fashion.
After some initial conversations with her sister-in-law, theatrical agent Helen Harvey, exploring what she might do, Betty hit upon the inspired idea of video-recording and documenting live theatre performances for history and future research. Others had talked about doing it, but no one had ever actually followed through navigating the thorny labyrinth of complex contracts and arrangements to actually make it a reality. Betty approached the four-year-old Library for the Performing Arts with the idea, thinking it would be the perfect home for such an endeavor. They agreed to allow her to try—and gave her a desk and phone, a promise of no money, and three months to get it off the ground. Thus a groundbreaking documentation effort and archive—and Betty’s spectacular second act—was launched.
In 2001, the American Theatre Wing chose to present Betty and the Theatre on Film and Archive with their highest honor, a Special Tony Award. In her acceptance speech, among her acknowledgements, Betty thanked Marlon Brando. Betty had seen A Streetcar Named Desire starring Brando, who revolutionized acting with his brutal, raw acting style. She had thought what a crime it was that, once the final curtain fell, there was no video record of the amazing performances and production. Of course, Brando, and co-stars Karl Malden and Kim Hunter, got to repeat their roles for the film version. But lead Jessica Tandy did not reprise her role as Blanche DuBois. The film producers hired Vivian Leigh for the role, because she was a box-office name at the time. Tandy’s performance as DuBois, originating one of the most challenging, iconic roles ever created for American theatre, is lost to the ages. Betty changed that. Betty revolutionized theatre history and research. With the creation of the TOFT Archive, she would document and preserve thousands of live Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theatre productions which would otherwise have been lost to the vagaries of memory and faded Playbills.
In doing so, she documented the work of many women theatre artists early on and throughout their careers, including Ntozake Shange, Lynn Aherns, JoAnne Akalitis, Maria Irene Fornes, Emily Mann, Susan Stroman, and in particular, Paula Vogel (who herself had once worked as Betty’s assistant), and Wendy Wasserstein, whose work, especially in The Heidi Chronicles, directly addressed the place of women in our society. Betty would also go on to found, in 1992, the Oral History Project for the League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW). She produced video interviews with notable women in the theatre—playwrights, composers, producers, designers, actors, and others—and documented their journeys and work for future study and inspiration. She continued this work with the TOFT Archive for nearly 20 years after her resignation from the Library (she hated the word “retirement”), until just one year before her death. This partnership with the League of Professional Theatre Women continues to this day.
Betty died in 2019, at age 98, and continues to be our inspiration and the north star of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.
This is part of the Foreword: Women Who Built NYPL series. Find out how the Library is celebrating Women's History Month with recommended reading, events and programs, and more.