Archives West Finding Aid

This collection, containing 3060 plays as of September 2017, was started early in 1931, soon after the creation of the School of Drama in the University of Washington, with a purchase or donation of at least 1800 acting editions from the stock of the play publisher Samuel French, Inc. Glenn Hughes, the founding Director of the School of Drama was eager to quickly create a strong library for the students and faculty. He was friends with Barrett Harper Clark, an editor at Samuel French, and it is likely through this friendship that the initial accession was made. In a letter to Harry C. Bauer (March 17, 1948), Hughes described the collection as “Approximately 4000 acting editions of 19th Cent. plays, chiefly British. This collection is perhaps not unique, but almost so, and was obtained a few years ago through the cooperation of Samuel French, the play publisher, who ransacked all their files and storage rooms for us. In many instances we obtained the last copy of the play on hand.” Hughes was a user of tactical exaggeration, but it is possible that the 4000 plays he mentions includes titles that were put into general circulation while the older and more unique became the foundation of this collection.

Most of the subsequent additions to the collection were in the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1936 and 1944 a set of acting editions associated with Augustin Daly were donated and/or bought (for between 66 cents and $1.60 each). These were plays that had been printed, but not published, for Daly’s own use as scripts for his New York theatre company and occasionally to be gifted by Daly on special occasions. These “Daly Promptbooks” were kept separate from the rest of the 19th Century Acting Editions until the whole collection was moved into the UW Library Special Collections in 2007. There are about 60 of these items.

Another interesting subset to this collection are about 50 items added from a single collection in December, 1935. These are scripts that are referred to as “souvenir editions” in the notes. They appear to have been made for sale or gift to the audience of a performance. The December, 1935 accession is primarily made up of Christmas extravaganzas, burlesques, and pantomimes, the predecessors of the British panto tradition. Other “Christmas extravaganzas” have also been noted in the finding aid. Since these souvenirs of the production often contain advertisements, fuller listings of the theatre workers, and occasional illustrations, and since they are quite ephemeral, they represent a unique communication between the show’s creators and its intended audience.

One of the most important accessions to this collection, in terms of theatre history and uniqueness, are the previously owned acting editions that were added in December 1936. They were purchased for 8 cents each from an un-named individual in Los Angeles. This subset of about 300 plays were all previously owned, and quite a few of them have “production notations” about cues for lighting, sound, entrance, music, and prompting. They also include notes for acting choices, stage directions, and occasional sketches, casts of specific performances, cuts, and additions. The performances represented were largely done in the middle of the 19th century. The majority of these scripts and prompt books were owned by J. Biddles (at least 130 plays), Ed. W. Acker (at least 15 plays), Edwin Clifford (at least 15 plays), John Wood, John Dillon, Alfred Harris, Dollie Biddles, J.E. Warner, G.W. Kirk, A. Wallace Thaxter, C. Clifford, and other un-named theatre workers. Some of them have no notations other than the owner’s name, but some could be the official prompt books of a company or production. This is also where a lot of the older and rare publications can be found in the collection. There is also a separate, undated, accession of plays previously owned by William J. LeMoyne (at least 55 plays), some of which include extensive production notations. A third subset of previously owned plays are from Sarah Truax, a 19th and early 20th century actress who retired to Seattle also donated some of her own notated plays to the collection (at least 12 plays). She loved to attend School of Drama productions and then correspond with Glenn Hughes with suggestions and comments about the acting and directing choices. Another friend of Glenn Hughes was William C. DeMille, who appears to have sent some plays owned by himself and his family members in 1941, at about the time that DeMille became the Chair of Drama at the University of Southern California. Other smaller, but still important subsets of previously owned plays in the collection are from: Ida Vernon (at least 9 plays), Edward Tuckerman Mason, A.B. Bundy, Mason Mitchell, Alice Ramous [sp?], L.S. Thompson, Frank Smith, J. Fletcher, N.M. Ludlow, M.S. Duerna [sp?], W.R. Blake, Mortimer Thompson, John Trimble, Thomas McCutcheon, A.H. Purdy, and Ida B. Taylor.

Most of the accessions to this collection were between 1931 and 1944. These included numerous small donations and sales from Glenn Hughes and Barrett Harper Clark, and smaller gifts from Mrs. William Trevor, Helen Erickson, and Babette Hughes. After 1931, there were also donations and purchases from companies: Samuel French, Walter H. Baker & Co., Carol Cox Book Co., Penn Play Company, and Raymer’s Old Book Store in Seattle. After 1944 some items that were in the General Circulation set of the Drama Library were moved into this collection. The latest accessions were added in about 2000, purchased from a private owner in Great Britain.

Glenn Hughes used this collection in the 1930s and 1940s as a teaching and research tool for students in the Drama program. Initially, the plays were cataloged and sorted by undergraduates in Hughes’ courses. They used bibliographical research, primarily the works of Allardyce Nicoll, to separate the plays into either British or American authors. Each play was labeled accordingly and then stored by author nationality. When the School of Drama began to offer Masters Degrees in Drama, the Masters students would be assigned a thesis project by Hughes, often based on the strengths of materials available in this collection. From about 1974-1977, Prof. Richard Lorenzen made a handlist of the plays in the British part of the collection and convinced the University of Washington Press to reproduce several of them onto microfiche to be distributed to some other Pacific Northwest university libraries. In the 1990s, Prof. Jack Walcott used the work and research of students in the PhD program to record evidence of production history and illustrations of specific performances as found in the collection. Motivated by Prof. Walcott and the Drama Librarian Liz Fugate, Mark Weitzenkamp researched the collection from 2007 to 2014 to create accurate dating criteria for acting editions. Then from 2014-2017, with the encouragement and assistance of Sandra Kroupa and Wesley Nelson in Special Collections, Weitzenkamp used those criteria to create this finding aid.

One thing that is noticeable about this collection as a representation of the 19th century is that it does not give preference to the canon of dramatic literature as much as it does to the canon of popular entertainment. As Prof. Richard Lorenzen said in the preface to his handlist of the British plays in this collection: "The majority of the acting editions are nineteenth-century farces. However, the collection is not as imbalanced as it might first appear. The Burnand, Morton, Selby, Coyne, Stirling and Planché conglomerate impressively weights one side of the generic scale, but the more serious, albeit melodramatic, offerings of Pitt, Jerrold, Pembertson, Fitzball, Hazlewood, and others compensate in quality for what is wanting in quantity. For the most part, the melodramatic selections are various samples from the more widely recognized writers of serious works and together with the farcical authors, the complete collection provides a vivid cross-sectional view of the infinite variety that distinguished the popular English stage." It may be that the more literary texts of the Anglo-American theatre were put into the general circulation of the Drama School Library. It may also be that when Samuel French ransacked their store rooms, they came up with the sorts of plays that they could no longer sell to customers interested in modern and literary theatre. It is also a possibility that Hughes did not take the plays that the Drama Library already owned in the various canonical anthologies and collections that were offered in more sturdy, circulating volumes. However it came about, this collection is a set of vibrant works that show the publication history of plays in the 19th century along with the performative standards of the popular theatre of the period. It does not likely hide the next rare discovery for the Broadway stage, but it can provide a more nuanced understanding of theatre, audience, playwriting, management, and socio-cultural norms of the 19th century in Great Britain and the U.S.

Historical note written by Mark P. Weitzenkamp, 2017

• Printed, not published: Titles marked in this fashion were plays put into print, but not released into official publication. Authors and producers used this tactic to maintain a stricter control over how the plays were used.
• Christmas extravaganza: Term used to identify the various harlequinades, burlesques, extravaganzas, and pantomimes that were central to the Christmas season in British theatres in the 19th century. These are the predecessors to the modern Christmas pantos still seasonally performed in Britain.
• Souvenir edition: While an acting edition is generally meant to be a practical tool for use in the preparation of a play for performance, they were also sometimes used as a souvenir of the production to be gifted or sold to the audience of the show.
• Production notation: Many plays in this collection were previously owned by 19th century performers and theatre workers. The evidence of their use of the plays could be as simple as the owner’s signature or pencil marks next to the lines of one of the characters. Some of the plays have more extensive information, including cuts, notes, new text, blocking, cues, or other evidence that could lead to understanding of a specific performance. The latter, more extensive information has been listed as “production notation” in the finding aid.
• Previous owner: When a specific item shows who had owned it before it was added to this collection, it is noted after this key phrase.
• Protective wrapper: An interesting point of research that could be pursued with this collection is how previous owners have shaped the acting editions to their preference. For example, the protective wrappers often have interesting tidbits of information. Some of these are made from architectural illustrations or advertisements.

• Title: Whenever possible, the title from the title page has been given. If not the title page, the title has been derived from (in order of preference): the front cover, the running title, by comparison with other copies.
• Subtitle: Whenever possible, the subtitle has been given from the title page, sometimes noting subtitle information from the front cover if it is relevant to sorting out the history of a specific item.
• Author/Creator: Since acting editions are often built on specific performances or performance traditions, as opposed to the original literary goals of the author, including the name of the latest authoritative hand to shape a text has been attempted. For this reason, plays by Shakespeare are likely to be listed under the adaptor or performer who shaped it to the version being printed. Whenever possible it has been attempted to list the translator of a play as the author. In many cases, the original author is included in the subtitle information. For example David Garrick is the adaptor of Katherine and Petruchio, but William Shakespeare is listed as the author in the subtitle. Where possible the pseudonyms and maiden names of authors are included in brackets. In cases where the author/creator is not shown on the text, and where it is very unclear or conflicting in other bibliographic resources, no author is listed.
• Publisher: Many acting editions passed through multiple publishers in plates, quires, or bound formats. The most up-to-date publisher information is usually given on the wrappers. The publisher name is taken from the front cover whenever possible. After that the following are used (in order of preference): publisher name elsewhere on the wrapper, the title page, advertisements in the text block, stylistic cues in comparison with other copies. For plays issued by Samuel French, who had both a London and a New York branch since the late 19th century, the branch of the publisher that actually controlled that series has been listed. For example: French’s Acting Edition was issued from London, while French’s Standard Drama was a production of the New York branch. There are at least 80 different publishers represented in this collection.
• Place of publication: As with the publisher name, preference is given to the address found on the front cover. If that is not available, the following are used (in order of preference): publisher address elsewhere on the wrapper, the title page, advertisements in the text block, stylistic cues in comparison with other copies.
• Date this copy was printed/issued: Before creating this finding aid, an extensive list of dating criteria was developed based on information to be found on the acting edition itself. This means that the dates listed are the dates and date ranges at which the latest publishing hand has affected this specific copy of the play before being passed on to the user/consumer. The first source of dating criteria is from the publisher name and address given on the wrapper. Publishers of acting editions rarely included dates in the imprint on the title page, but these were used to help narrow down dates in comparison with the publisher information. Other dating criteria include: listed performance dates, copyrights, accession information, owner dates, dates given in advertisements, prefaces, dedications, typography, stylistics, series names, listed cost, spelling patterns, references to dated moments in history, datable ads for other publications, type & color of paper, and color of wrappers. For the plays in French’s Acting Edition and Lacy’s Acting Edition, the wrapper often includes a long list of sellers and locations around the world where further plays in the series may be purchased. This criteria has been used these to pin down more exact dates whenever possible. Allardyce Nicoll has been avoided as a basis of dating due to the high degree of inaccuracy of his dates, and his preference for dates of first performance over dates of publication.
• Notes: Whenever a wrapper is present, its current color is indicated. Due to the use of aging, and acidic library bindings, the colors may be different than when originally issued. Notes also include the names of previous owners (search using last names listed above).
• Series name: The series name is usually derived from the wrapper, since that usually represents the latest publisher’s hand to touch the publication. Some acting editions may show evidence of two to three previous series names on places like the title page, advertisements, wrappers, and the critical notes. Title pages are particularly untrustworthy indications of play series for some publishers.
• Series number: The series number is given from a combination of the information on the wrapper and comparison against master lists of plays in series from company advertisements and catalogs in Weitzenkamp's collection. Typesetters and publishers seemed to have been rather sloppy in their understanding of Roman numerals, leading to misprinting of series numbers on acting editions. The series number are included in brackets if the printed numbers are incorrect. There are approximately 60 different play series represented in this collection.