Founder of The New York Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive to Retire After 31 Years

Betty Corwin Built Collection into a World-Renowned Resource

New York, September 14, 2000 -- Betty Corwin, whose idea to document live performances of theatrical productions  burgeoned into The New York Public Library's world-renowned Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), will retire as Director of the archive on September 28 after 31 years. Corwin began working on TOFT as a volunteer in 1969 and was hired full-time in 1974. Since then, she has built the collection into the world's foremost archive of recorded theatrical performance.

Along the way, she amassed assorted accolades: a Drama Desk award, an Obie, a certificate of recognition from the City of New York, a spot on the Tony Award nominating committee, and a  position as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

After her retirement, Corwin will retain her affiliation with TOFT as Director of Special Projects and will work on video programs related to various aspects of the theatre.

The archive, which is part of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, now consists of 2,445 Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions videotaped during performance as well as other theatre-related video recordings. Another invaluable aspect of the collection is its 232 archive-produced video dialogues with stellar talents discussing their craft  -- George Abbott, Richard Rodgers, Eva Le Gallienne, Zoe Caldwell, Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and Al Hirschfeld-- among them.

"Without Betty Corwin, a generation of theatrical performances would have slipped away to the vagaries of memory and legend," said Paul LeClerc, President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Public Library. "Now future generations will be able to witness landmark performances by Colleen Dewhurst, James Earl Jones, Zero Mostel, Angela Lansbury, Al Pacino, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Kevin Spacey, and Meryl Streep, to name a few. Betty's contributions extend beyond the Library to anyone interested in developments in the theatre during the last 31 years, and she herself has joined the roster of theatrical legends that she has worked so hard to preserve."

The collection's scope is impressive.  "The earliest images, silent black and white excerpts from early Richard Rodgers musicals, were donated by the composer's wife Dorothy,"Corwin said. They feature such musical comedy stars of the 1940s and 1950s as Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Vivienne Segal, and Dennis King.

Recent productions are well represented, too. In the past year, TOFT taped 68 live performances --  21 on Broadway; 34 Off-Broadway;  and 13 productions in regional theatres from the eclectic offerings of Massachusetts' Williamstown Theatre Festival to summer Shakespeare in Ashland, Oregon. Over the years, the archive has recorded such highly praised productions as the 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night, with Geraldine Fitzgerald and Robert Ryan, the 1974 version of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, with Elizabeth Ashley and Keir Dullea, Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, and the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. More recent additions to the collection include Contact, Kiss Me Kate, Phantom of the Opera, Death of a Salesman, The Iceman Cometh, and The Real Thing.

"Betty's vision for TOFT is important not only because of its invaluable record of the theatre but also because it has helped steer the Library into a role as an organization that proactively documents our cultural heritage," said William D. Walker, Senior Vice President and Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries. "As a result of her groundbreaking work at TOFT, we have perfected our procedures for dealing with the preservation of archival video. Those kinds of innovations made her work enormously important to all libraries."

When Corwin arrived as a volunteer she came with a mission: to preserve live theatre for researchers, professionals, students and others with a serious interest in the form. It troubled her that so many great performances were lost once the curtain fell. Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie are two examples from a lamentably long list.

After Corwin proposed her idea to Thor E. Wood, Chief of what was then called the Performing Arts Research Center, she was told she could have "three months, a desk, and a telephone," although no money was available, to see if she could get the project off the ground. It was a start and she ran with it.

Her first big challenge was gaining approval from the 10 theatrical guilds and unions that represent the myriad professionals it takes to deliver a show to an audience: actors, stagehands, playwrights, directors, choreographers, musicians, designers, press agents and others. If she was unable to persuade them to agree to videotapings, the idea was doomed. During the 2 1/2 years of negotiations, "I just tackled the unions one at a time," Corwin said. "I pleaded and cajoled and explained how much it would benefit them and the industry to have a record of their work."

In 1970, Corwin videotaped the archive's first show, an off-Broadway production of the Japanese rock musical, "Golden Bat." When she began her career as an archivist, Corwin had a passionate love of theatre but, she said, "I didn't know anything about the technical part of filming a show, although I kind of blundered my way around at first. I was able to raise $200 for that first production. Today, using top quality professional video crews and equipment, it costs approximately $10,000 to do a two-camera shoot."

Corwin grew up in New York, "with a love of all things dramatic." In the 1940s, after receiving a bachelor's degree in English and theatre, she worked as a production assistant and script reader for Broadway producers and was a professional songwriter. When she married Dr. Henry Corwin, a dermatologist, they moved to Weston, Connecticut and raised three children. There, she channeled her interest in social issues toward helping establish the World Affairs Center, which coordinated civil and human rights activities in Fairfield County, and worked as a hospital volunteer. As her children grew older, Corwin decided she could spare the time to return to work in the theatre.

One of her first tasks at the Library was to decide which productions should be preserved. "Our main criteria for videotaping is outstanding quality of any kind," Corwin said, "and that encompasses a range of subjects, themes and styles. Not every aspect of the production may be flawless, but some element, be it acting, writing, directing, choreography, set design, must warrant a place in the artistic canon." TOFT is committed to documenting the full range of works by major playwrights such as Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, and Eugene O'Neill, as well as that of emerging dramatists.

The archive's approach to documentation is simple even though the actual technical requirements for recording certain massive musical productions like "Lion King," which was recorded with a record five-camera crew, can be complex. "We call our tapes study prints," Corwin said of the method. "It's important for a stage manager or dance captain to be able to recreate the blocking or check the pace of the dancers in a musical. We zoom in, however, when the action calls for it. Our mission is to document rather than interpret. We don't use dissolves, fades or other cinematic techniques."

"Don't tell me Betty Corwin's really retiring! That's unacceptable," said Broadway Director Harold Prince, a Library Trustee. "The archive she single-handedly created is as significant a repository for the history of live theatre as any in the world. It continues to inform and stimulate artists, students, and theatre historians. Its investment in the past assures the future of the art form in our country."

Each year more than 5,000 visitors from 31 countries use the archive. As one would expect, many of them are theatre professionals, teachers and students, but it's also proven an essential source of information for authors, historians, critics, journalists and film and television producers. Corwin and her staff are accustomed to famous faces in the viewing rooms as actors come to prepare for roles, and directors, choreographers, playwrights and set designers do research. "The facilities are terrific and what a wonderful record of our theatre history. This is an institution that deserves support and funding as an important addition to the cultural life of New York City," wrote Kevin Spacey in a note of thanks to Corwin and her staff.

"I have used your ... archive many times," said  actor Brian Stokes Mitchell in his letter of appreciation to TOFT. " The archive always seems to have what I need. Both Marin Mazzie and I found exactly what we needed for our research before starting Kiss Me Kate so I guess you can take some credit for our success with the show."

During the renovation of the Library for Performing Arts building at Lincoln Center, the research collections, including the TOFT Archive, are operating out of the Library Annex on West 43rd Street. The Library for the Performing Arts will reopen at Lincoln Center in Fall 2001.

After her long career at the Library, Corwin's institutional memory is an archive all its own that is too valuable to lose. Does she plan to take a break before assuming her special projects role? "No," she said, as if startled by the question. After all, this is the woman, who when seriously injured in a car accident in California some years ago, called the office daily from intensive care.

"I feel fulfilled and happy," Corwin said of her career. "I was able to do something I loved and create a resource that hadn't existed before. It's hard to believe that for 31 years we've been preserving some of the great artists of our era. It's going to be heartbreaking to leave the archive and all the wonderful people I've gotten to know and work with," she said, "but I feel rewarded to know that TOFT has grown to become the foremost archive of its kind in the world."
 

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