Theater & Television

Today in History primary source sets

• George M. Cohan
• Bob Fosse
• George Gershwin & Gullah Culture
• The Gish Sisters
• Hippodrome
• Harry Houdini
• Joe Jefferson
• Eugene O’Neill & the Provincetown Players
• Radio City Music Hall
• Lillian Russell
• William Shakespeare
• Stravinsky & Balanchine
• Sophie Tucker
• Orson Welles’ First Macbeth
• Television
• Thornton Wilder
• Works Progress Administration
• Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

Featured images

• Dracula
• Lillian Russell in the “Tzigane”

Library Collections

• The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920
• Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Collection
• Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
• Performing Arts Posters
• Roger Reynolds Collection
• The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress

Online Exhibitions

• Al Hirschfeld – Beyond Broadway
• Bob Hope and American Variety
• Coast to Coast: The Federal Theatre Project, 1935–1939
• Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine: Two Kids from Brooklyn
• I Love Lucy: An American Legend
• A Night at the Opera
• Roger L. Stevens Presents
• Stagestruck!: Performing Arts Caricatures at the Library of Congress
• “To See the Wizard” – Oz on Stage and Film
• West Side Story

Teaching resources

• Primary Source Learning: Teaching with Primary Source Posters
• Learning from the Source: Amateur Night @ the Apollo Race Relations
• Guided primary source analysis activities
  • Astor Theatre – The Great Ziegfeld
  • Hippodrome Theater
  • Television finds a home
• Collection Connections – The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment
• Collection Connections – The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project

Library blog posts

• Abba, ABBA, EBU, EB Who? Eurovision! In Custodia Legis May 14, 2019
• Aladdin: In Our Collections and Now on Broadway! In The Muse April 1, 2014
• Breathing Life into the Classics: How Suffrage Plays and Tennessee Williams Complicate 20th-Century Theater In the Muse July 27, 2017
• Celebrating Black Musical Theater Library of Congress Blog February 7, 2019
• Finding Jonathan Larson’s Lost Works In Tapes and Boxes . . . and Turning Them Into a Show In The Muse September 6, 2018
• Learning the Backstory to “Rent” In The Muse July 19, 2017
• Linking Letters with Lyrics: “Hamilton” Songs Draw on Original Library Documents Library of Congress Blog May 30, 2018
• Listen Back to Jason Robert Brown! In The Muse December 6, 2017
• Miles White Costume Designs In The Muse December 17, 2018
• Musical Theatre and Law: Chicago, The Musical In Custodia Legis April 30, 2019
• My Irish Song of Songs In The Muse March 17, 2016
• Nice Work If You Can Get It: George Gershwin and Jerome Kern In The Muse July 11, 2018 
• Performing the History of Musical Theater Library of Congress Blog January 10, 2018
• The Quest for the Historical Broadway Sound In The Muse August 20, 2015
• Rodgers and Hammerstein Series  In Muse
  • “Do-Re-Mi” November 18, 2014
  • “Getting to Know You” February 3, 2014
  • “It Might as Well Be Spring” May 21, 2014
  • “Manhattan” (Rodgers & Hart) November 20, 2014
  • “My Favorite Things” April 2, 2014
  • “A Real Nice Clambake” November 19, 2014
  • “Some Enchanted Evening” August 18, 2014
  • “Something Wonderful” March 30, 2018
• Rudolph and Joseph Schildkraut: Austrian-American Stars of Stage and Screen In The Muse January 29, 2019
• Seasons of Love: Do the Math In The Muse January 25, 2019
• Sister Gregory Duffy: An Asset to the Abbey and the Theater In The Muse April 16, 2012
• Sondheim at the Library: A Friendship with “Steve” Library of Congress Blog November 29, 2021
• A Strange Find, The Perfect Day, and You! In the Muse December 21, 2021
• West Side Story: The Creation of a Classic In the Muse December 8, 2021

Additional resources

• Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century