Research Catalog

Title

Profile of Joseph Papp : raw footage [videorecording] / produced by Peter Rosen Productions [for WNET/WETA and MacNeil/Lehrer Gannett Productions].

Publication

New York, 1984-1985.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Papp, Joseph
• Nelligan, Kate, 1951-
• Massell, June
• Rosen, Peter, 1943-
• WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.)
• MacNeil-Lehrer-Gannett Productions, producer.
• Liberty Studios, producer.
• Matthew Selino & Associates, producer.
• New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, producer.

Description

37 videodiscs (DVD) (606 min.) : sound, color; 4 3/4 in.

Summary

Raw footage from the taping of the MacNeil/Lehrer newshour profile of theatrical producer Joseph Papp. Included are 36 master tapes from producer Peter Rosen. Also included are two tapes provided by the New York Shakespeare Festival featuring excerpts from its productions.

Donor/Sponsor

Gift of the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival.

Series Statement

Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival Moving Image Collection

Uniform Title

MacNeil/Lehrer newshour (Television program)

Subjects

• Kramer, Larry > Normal heart
• Papp, Joseph > Childhood and youth
• Theatrical producers and directors > Interviews
• Delacorte Theater (New York, N.Y.)
• New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater
• Nelligan, Kate, 1951- > Interviews
• Theater > New York (State) > New York
• Hamlisch, Marvin > Chorus line
• Papp, Joseph > Interviews
• Papp, Joseph > Friends and associates

Note

• For final edit of profile see NCOX 5028.
• No DVD copy was made of Videocassette 36, which consists only of a test pattern.
• These videos separated from the New York Shakespeare Festival collection, *T-Mss 1993-028.
• Videodisc 1: 20 min., December 1984. Interview with Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization.
• Videodisc 2: 18 min., December 1984. Continuation of the interview with Bernard Jacobs.
• Videodisc 3: 17 min., exact date unknown. Includes interview with Bernard Jacobs, president, The Shubert Organization; interviewer June Massell rehearsing questions and marquee shots of Shubert productions.
• Videodisc 4: 12 min., exact date unknown. Includes interview with Bernard Jacobs; tape shows box office and audiences at the musical A chorus line plus posters of other Broadway shows.
• Videodisc 5: 19 min., exact date unknown. Tape shows a reception where people are socializing. Colleen Dewhurst, Estelle Parsons, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn are interviewed about their friendship and professional relationship with Joseph Papp.
• Videodisc 6: 12 min., exact date unknown. Actors Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn are interviewed about Papp, and about the play Solonika by Louise Page at the Public Theater in which Tandy is starring. Papp joins them toward the end of the tape.
• Videodisc 7: Joe Papp seder, 16 min., April 5, 1985. Tape opens with early family photos of Papp's mother, father and siblings. Tape switches to a seder dinner table where Papp talks about seder traditions and customs.
• Videodisc 8: Joe Papp seder, 3 min., April 5, 1985. Tape shows Papp conducting his family seder in Hebrew.
• Videodisc 9: Joe Papp seder, 18 min., April 5, 1985. Papp conducts his family seder in Hebrew and English and explains some of the customs.
• Videodisc 10: Joe Papp seder, 8 min., April 5, 1985. Papp conducts his family seder in Hebrew and English.
• Videodisc 11: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interview with Wilford Leach, principal director of the Public Theater. He talks of his experiences working with Papp. First three minutes show Leach at a drawing board; there is no sound.
• Videodisc 12: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interview with Joseph Papp. First four minutes show interviewer preparing questions for the Public Theater director, Wilford Leach. Tape then goes to Papp's office where the crew tries out some experiments with the camera. Papp talks of his upcoming production of Shakespeare's Measure for measure and his present production The normal heart by Larry Kramer.
• Videodisc 13: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interviewer talks with Papp and his wife Gail Merrifield in Papp's office at the Public Theater. Papp and Merrifield speak about their working relationship and the production The normal heart.
• Videodisc 14: 21 min., April 11, 1985. In his office at the Public Theater Papp rehearses some songs he will sing at a benefit.
• Videodisc 15: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Papp is videotaped at his office at the Public Theater, where he discusses several of his best-known productions and introduces some of his staff. Includes shots of posters without sound.
• Videodisc 16: 17 min., April 11, 1985. First seven minutes of tape contains scans of wall of awards hanging in Papp's office; video flickers; sound is off. Sound returns for an interview with playwright Larry Kramer who discusses his play The normal heart.
• Videodisc 17: 19 min., April 11, 1985. Actors Brad Davis and Michael Santoro rehearse the play The normal heart. Author Larry Kramer, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Gail Merrifield and Joseph Papp observe.
• Videodisc 18: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Papp is interviewed about his early years. He grew up in poverty; he went into the Navy during World War II, and afterwards studied at the Actors' Laboratory Workshop in Los Angeles. Papp also speaks about his philosophy of the theater.
• Videodisc 19: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Papp is interviewed seated on stage at the Public Theater. He speaks about his experiences as an actor and the acting profession; his power as a theatrical producer; the financial condition of the Public Theater and his current efforts to build its endowment; the history of his Shakespearean acting company and his first plays in Central Park; his conflict with Parks Commissioner Robert Moses over charging admission to the Central Park plays.
• Videodisc 20: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interview with Papp continues. He elaborates on his battle with Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and his support for free theater in Central Park; his role in American theater; his interest in nurturing the talents of playwrights; his successes and failures theatrically; his views on the musical A chorus line; his work life and its impact on his relationship with his children.
• Videodisc 21: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interview with Joseph Papp continues for first 13 minutes, with sound becoming erratic for last three. Interview with Kate Nelligan begins. She discusses her appearance in the play Plenty by David Hare with Papp as producer.
• Videodisc 22: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Interview with Kate Nelligan about the production of Virginia in which she stars. After 5 min. there are closeups of the interviewer with and without sound rehearsing her questions. This is followed by shots of Papp talking to people in the lobby of the Public Theater.
• Videodisc 23: 16 min., April 11, 1985. In the lobby of the Public Theater just before curtain time, Papp talks with playwright John Guare and other audience members about his various productions and projects.
• Videodisc 24: 20 min., April 11, 1985. Contains excerpts from plays at the Public Theater during the evening, including Virginia starring Kate Nelligan and Salonika with Jessica Tandy, Maxwell Caulfield and Elizabeth Wilson.
• Videodisc 25: 14 min., April 11, 1985. Tape begins at one minute; bottom half of tape only is visible for first four minutes. Footage of Papp in a classroom with students who are practicing improvisations related to setting the situation for a play.
• Videodisc 26: 19 min., exact date unknown. Top part of this tape cannot be seen some portions; it is dark and flickering. Tape takes place in a classroom filled with students about age twelve. Papp participates in class exercise of improvisational play acting followed by discussion about being a producer.
• Videodisc 27: 18 min., exact date unknown. Tape takes place in a classroom filled with sixth graders. Students ask questions of Papp about playwriting, acting and the theater in general. The session is part of program introduced by the New York Shakespeare Festival to familiarize students with theater with the goal of building an audience for the future.
• Videodisc 28: 18 min., exact date unknown. Taping takes place at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Papp tells the interviewer about his battle to establish the theater, a venue which has provided thousands with their first theater experience. Papp discusses the stars who have played there, problems with the weather, and then recites some Shakespeare. Also includes footage of interviewer rehearsing questions she will ask Papp; sound is occasionally poor and there is flickering onscreen.
• Videodisc 29: 17 min., April 18, 1985. Interviewer rehearses questions she will ask Papp about the creation of the Delacorte Theater for the first 13 minutes. All action takes place at the Delacorte as the camera pans to show the park area adjoining the theater.
• Videodisc 30: 21 min., April 24, 1985. Tape shows rough, unedited footage of A chorus line performed in a theater before a live audience. (This is not the original cast.) Tape jumps and flickers and is unclear at times. Video jumps from one scene to another.
• Videodisc 31: 19 min., April 24, 1985. Tape shows rough, unedited footage of A chorus line performed in a theater before a live audience.
• Videodisc 32: 4 min., exact date unknown. Footage of a rehearsal for the musical A chorus line. Its creator Michael Bennett is shown working with dancers.
• Videodisc 33: 20 min. May 25, 1985. Graphics.
• Videodisc 34: 20 min., exact date unknown. Peter Rosen audio transfer (voice over).
• Videodisc 35: 20 min., exact date unknown. Stills.
• Videocassette 36: 20 min. Camera three test tape. "Top frame tearing and color aberration--none present."
• Videodisc 37: 45 min., no date on tape. NYSF related segments for MacNeil/Lehrer report. Joe Papp singing Yossel, Yossel and Brother, can you spare a dime? Morosco coverage. Hair segments from I want youth, NYSF promo film.
• Videodisc 38: 10 min., no date on tape. Viewing cassette. Three A chorus line television clips. 1) Baryshnikov on Broadway; 2) Live and in person (NBC network); 3) A chorus line TV commercial.

Access (note)

• Restricted to qualified researchers.

Event (note)

• Videotaped at the Public Theater in New York, N.Y. and various locations in New York City during 1984 and 1985. The completed profile of Joseph Papp was aired Channel 13, WNET-TV, June 13, 1985 at 8:00 p.m.

Call Number

NCOX 5047

OCLC

NYPG05-F10244

Title

Profile of Joseph Papp : raw footage [videorecording] / produced by Peter Rosen Productions [for WNET/WETA and MacNeil/Lehrer Gannett Productions].

Imprint

New York, 1984-1985.

Series

Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival Moving Image Collection

Access

Restricted to qualified researchers.

Event

Videotaped at the Public Theater in New York, N.Y. and various locations in New York City during 1984 and 1985. The completed profile of Joseph Papp was aired Channel 13, WNET-TV, June 13, 1985 at 8:00 p.m.

Added Author

Papp, Joseph, interviewee.

Nelligan, Kate, 1951- interviewee.

Massell, June, interviewer.

Rosen, Peter, 1943- producer.

WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.)

MacNeil-Lehrer-Gannett Productions, producer.

Liberty Studios, producer.

Matthew Selino & Associates, producer.

New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, producer.

Added Title

MacNeil/Lehrer newshour (Television program)

Research Call Number

NCOX 5047