Archives West Finding Aid

The Gail Plummer papers (circa 1960-1980) consist mainly of scrapbooks detailing productions at Kingsbury Hall, the University of Utah's summer festivals, and Babcock Theater. The scrapbooks are a comprehensive look at each of the shows Kingsbury Hall did in the 1940s and 1950s. There are scrapbooks for the regular season and for the summer festivals. Each one contains programs, letters, tickets, and news clippings about each show. The collection is arranged with Gail Plummer's scrapbooks first, for 10 boxes. Box eleven contains biographical material concerning Gail Plummer, as well as a scrapbook of history regarding Kingsbury Hall. Next are five scrapbooks compiled by Maud May Babcock, in boxes 16 through 18. Then, there are three volumes containing programs from Salt Lake Theater productions of 1901-1902, comprising boxes 19 and 20. These scrapbooks are an invaluable source of theater information, offering a comprehensive look at the end of the Salt Lake Theater and the beginning of Kingsbury Hall. They also illustrate how the summer festivals brought the arts together, merging theater with music and dance, and bringing together some of the great artistic organizers of their generation: C. Lowell Lees, Maurice Abravanel, Willam Christensen, Glade Peterson, and Gail Plummer. The 1996 addendum (boxes 21-24) contains scrapbooks and other documents regarding the career of Gail Plummer. Included are documents regarding University of Utah dramatic activities, including cast lists and production programs, and scrapbooks documenting the career of Maud May Babcock, a University of Utah speech and drama professor. As noted in the inventory, many of the materials in this addendum are photocopies of original documents. Boxes 25-27 consist mainly of Salt Lake Theater and Salt Lake Dramatic Association programs.