TLA PROMPTBOOK
TLA PROMPTBOOK is an infrequent, brief, and informative email alert for the members of Theatre Library Association; detailed information and announcements will be published in BROADSIDE as usual. We promise not to deluge your mailboxes with more e-clutter than necessary. The TLA-L listserv continues as a forum for unmoderated discussion of issues related to performing arts collections, open by subscription to TLA members and non-members alike.
If you are a TLA member in good standing and are not receiving the TLA PROMPTBOOK alerts, or would like to change the email address to which they are sent, please contact info@tla-online.org.
Recent TLA PROMPTBOOK Alerts
#78 - Updated Membership Directory Is Now Available
February 4, 2012
The Theatre Library Association Online Membership Directory, updated with membership information through January 2012, is now available on the TLA website:
http://www.tla-online.org/members/loginrequired/directoryonline.html
The Membership Directory is password-protected for TLA Members. Contact info@tla-online.org for login details.
Please help us keep our records current. If your professional or contact information has changed, please take a moment to send in an update form. Member information updates can be submitted at any time by mail or email.
Send a message to info@tla-online.org if you encounter any problems.
#77 - 2012 TLA Plenary Call for Papers
January 4, 2012
TLA Plenary - Call for Papers
2012 Annual Conference of American Society for Theatre Research-Theatre Library Association
Nashville, Tennessee, November 1-4, 2012
TLA AT 75: COLLECTING THE FUTURE BY MEDIATING THE PAST
Theatre Library Association will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2012. To honor this milestone, we seek archivists, librarians, practitioners, and scholars to investigate and contextualize the role that performance documentation has played within the larger frame of performing arts history over the past 75 years.
Cultural repositories have long contributed to the significance of performance history. As dynamic mediators between resources and researchers, these collections occupy a complex position which is constantly in flux. Technologies and best practices change, and what might have seemed unimportant yesterday could be most vital today.
Professional choices made by archivists, curators, librarians, and researchers constantly shape and reshape how we document performance history – and how it is transferred to the next generation of audiences, educators, practitioners, students, and scholars.
We invite Proposals to consider the following questions:
- How should cultural repositories participate in documenting the history of performance?
- How have new technologies – from microfilm to digitization – transformed the work of performing arts archivists, librarians, and historians?
- How does the act of documenting performance contribute to creation of meta-performance?
- How have libraries and archives helped shape changes in theatre and performance studies?
- What particular challenges do various documentation strategies and media – oral history or born-digital materials – pose for theatre historians?
- How have the challenges of researching and writing about theatre history transitioned over the past 75 years?
Please submit one-page Proposal by February 15, 2012 to:
Beth Kattelman, Plenary Chair
Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute
Ohio State University
119D Thompson Library
1858 Neil Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210
#76 - The Fall 2011 Issue of BROADSIDE is Here!
December 21, 2011
The Fall 2011 issue of BROADSIDE, a newsletter of Theatre Library Association is now available on the TLA Website. Access to BROADSIDE is open--no username or password required!
Inside this issue:
* 2011 TLA Awards Ceremony
* President's Report
* TLA Plenary at ASTR/TLA Conference
* SAA Visits the Joffrey Ballet
* Broadside News Network
* Reviews of: Acting at the Speed of Life: Conquering Theatrical Style, by Tim Mooney; Nicholas Ray: the Glorious Failure of an American Director, by Patrick McGilligan; and more
Go to http://www.tla-online.org/publications/broadside.html to download this issue.
Send a message to info@tla-online.org if you encounter any problems.
#75 - 2011 Election Results
November 9, 2011
Thank you to everyone who participated in TLA's 2011 online elections.
Four Board members were elected at TLA’s Annual Business meeting on November 4th. Diana King, Francesca Marini, Tiffany Nixon, and Doug Reside will serve three-year terms from 2012-2014.
TLA President Kenneth Schlesinger welcomes our new Board members, as well as King and Marini, who are returning. He gives special thanks for the service and contributions of departing Board members John Frick and Stephen Johnson.
#74 - Special Discount for Cymbeline Tickets
November 6, 2011
Barrow Street Theatre in New York City is offering special discounts to TLA members for Fiasco Theater's critically acclaimed production of Cymbeline: $37.50 for Saturday matinees and Sunday evenings; and $49.50 for all other performances. Contact info@tla-online.org to obtain the codes necessary to receive the discount.
There are three ways to purchase tickets:
1. ONLINE: Click HERE and use code
2. PHONE: Call SmartTix at 212-868-4444 and mention code
3. IN PERSON: Bring the code to the Barrow Street Theatre Box Office, located at 27 Barrow Street, open 1pm daily (on the corner of Seventh Avenue, 1 block south of Christopher Street)
This offer excludes 11/26-11/27 and 12/25.
There’s a post-show discussion on Saturday, November 19th after the matinee with Shakespeare scholar and CUNY Graduate Center Professor Richard McCoy.
#73 - 2011 TLA Plenary at the ASTR/TLA Conference
October 5, 2011
Registration is now open for the 2011 American Society for Theatre Research/Theatre Library Association Annual Conference, being held this year at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, November 17-20. The theme is Economies of Theatre. VIsit http://www.astr.org/conference for more information and to register.
The TLA Plenary will take place on Saturday, November 19 at 11:00 AM:
Fringe Economies, Commercial Ventures, and Cultural Repositories
Popular entertainments – circus, magic, conjuring, solo performance, sketch and improvisational comedy – historically have competed in an environment driven by the profit motive. However, many of these practices emerged as celebrations of cultural heritage, and circumvented obstacles of gender, race and body type that defined complementary performing art forms. They rooted themselves in urban areas and touring circuits to maximize their income potential. Some have achieved global recognition such as Cirque de Soleil, David Copperfield, Criss Angel, and Second City.
Nevertheless, much of this important output remains under the radar and neglected in representation in formal archives, libraries and special collections dedicated to the performing arts. Asserting that theatre is an economic enterprise unto itself, this panel seeks to investigate how traditional commercial performing art forms – as well as those off the grid – participate in standard and accepted documentation and preservation strategies through their records, repositories, and performance practices.
The panelists include:
Lynne Conner, Colby College, The Audience as Cultural Repository
Robert Crane, University of Pittsburgh, From the Worker’s Club to the Archive: Documenting the Economies of Early Soviet Popular Theatre
Beth Kattelman, Ohio State University, Lying in the Archives: Magicians, Charlatans and the Economy of Deception
Plenary Chair: Colleen Reilly
TLA is also sponsoring a tour of Cirque du Soleil's Montreal facility on the afternoon of Friday, November 18. Make your reservation when you register.
#72 - Nominate a Candidate for the Distinguished Service Award
September 26, 2011
The ideal candidate for Theatre Library Association’s Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award may well be someone you know and have worked with—someone who has made a difference in your professional life and whose energy and vision have expanded your own view of what it means to be a performing arts professional. Your candidate may also have had a transformative effect on performing arts librarianship and may have expanded the boundaries of performing arts librarianship. TLA wants to recognize and honor such individuals and acknowledge their expertise and creativity.
Please take a moment to nominate your candidate, who may be a performing arts librarian, a curator, an archivist or a scholar. Please submit your candidate’s name, accompanied by a short biography, to Phyllis Dircks by December 1, 2011. The award will be presented at the 2012 Annual Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony. In making the nomination, you will be helping to bring renown to a deserving professional, as well as enhancing the state of all performing arts professionals.
Our distinguished awardees from previous years are listed below:
2011 Susan Brady
2010 Kevin Winkler
2009 Robert Taylor
2008 Richard Wall
2006 Maryann Chach, Mary C. Henderson, Madeline Fitzgerald Matz
2004 Annette Fern, Don Wilmeth
2002 Betty L. Corwin, Richard M. Buck
2000 Rod Bladell, Don Fowle, Maryann Jensen, Louis Rachow
1996 Dorothy Swerdlove
1994 Paul Myers
And please join us to honor this year's awardee, Susan Brady, on Friday, November 4 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. More information can be found here.
Awards Committee: Phyllis Dircks, Chair; Maryann Chach; Don Wilmeth
#71 - The 43rd Annual Theatre Library Association Book Awards
September 18, 2011
The executive board of the Theatre Library Association invites you to attend the 43rd Annual Theatre Library Association Book Awards.
Theatre Library Association celebrates exceptional performing arts books and honors one of its outstanding members--and, for the first time, an outstanding student member--at the Lincoln Center ceremony being held on Friday, November 4! In addition to the award winners, the 2011 Freedley and Wall juries have designated one additional title in each category as a special jury prize winner. Please join us to congratulate this year's winners.
**George Freedley Memorial Award**
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro (Simon & Schuster)
The Special Jury Prize Winner is Stephen Sondheim, author of Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (Knopf).
**Richard Wall Memorial Award**
Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eyman (Simon & Schuster).
The Special Jury Prize Winner is Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History (W.W. Norton & Company).
The awards ceremony will be highlighted by presentations from the winning authors on the research and writing of their books, followed by questions from the audience.
A special award for Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship will be presented to Susan Brady, archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
And the first Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship Award will be presented to Abigail Garnett, MLS Student, Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University.
The presentation will take place promptly at 6:00 PM following the annual TLA Business Meeting at 5:30 PM in the Bruno Walter Auditorium of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (enter at Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street). A champagne reception will follow.
This year, for the first time, TLA is conducting its annual elections online. All members in good standing will receive a registration notice by email containing voting instructions and a link to the website where they can vote. They will have until 5:00 PM EDT on November 4 to complete their ballots. Paper ballots will be available at the Business Meeting for those members who were unable to vote online, and the results of the elections will be announced at that time. Look for a registration notice in your inbox later today.
Visit http://www.tla-online.org/awards/bookawards.html for more information on the TLA Book Awards.
For RSVPs, please visit http://tiny.cc/TLA_Bookawards_RSVP.
#70 - Winner of Brooks McNamara Scholarship Announced
September 9, 2011
Theatre Library Association is proud to announce that Abigail Garnett is the first recipient of the Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship. TLA, with generous support from Alexander Street Press, endowed the inaugural Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship to recognize the achievements of a new member of the performing arts library and archival profession.
Brooks McNamara – beloved theater historian, scholar, educator, and mentor – was Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and founder of the Shubert Archive. The Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship acknowledges the outstanding professional accomplishments of promising students currently enrolled in MLS or archival training programs specializing in performing arts librarianship.
Students are required to submit an essay on the topic, From Legacy to Frontier: The Future of Performing Arts Librarianship.
Abigail Garnett wrote, in part:
Performing arts libraries are sustained by a fascination, on the part of both patrons and librarians, with the layers of meaning surrounding a performance. Those layers of meaning are manifested in the physical artifacts and ephemera that librarians traditionally seek to gather and preserve. These objects, much like the catalog entries that describe them, are nevertheless incomplete representations. There remains, then, the ongoing challenge of guiding patrons through a network of references that are often several degrees removed from the original object of interest.
The specific challenges of presenting, preserving, and making performing arts materials accessible also provide unique opportunities to explore innovative technologies. Taking advantage of a long history with special collections and archival materials, libraries can now generate increased interest in their materials through blogs, online streaming, and social media. As demand increases for unprecedented ease of access on the heels of these new developments, collections focused on the arts are uniquely suited to carving out their own place within the online conversation.
Abigail Garnett, an MLS student at Long Island University’s Palmer School of Library and Information Science, will receive her Award and stipend at Theatre Library Association's annual Book Awards at Lincoln Center on Friday, November 4, 2011 at 6:00 PM. She will read her winning essay to the audience at that time.
Congratulations, Abigail!
2011 Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship Award Committee: Nancy Friedland, Chair; Phyllis Dircks; Francesca Marini; Karen Nickeson
#69 - The August 2011 Membership Directory Is Now Available
August 17, 2011
The Theatre Library Association Online Membership Directory, has now been updated for August 2011:
http://www.tla-online.org/members/loginrequired/directoryonline.html
The Membership Directory is password-protected for TLA Members. Contact info@tla-online.org for login details.
Last updated: January 4, 2012