Brooks McNamara Papers
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Abstract
The Brooks McNamara Papers are comprised almost entirely of McNamara's subject files on the expansive breadth of theater, drama, and performance in early American, early British, and contemporary American life. Materials include articles, brochures, catalogues, correspondence, drafts, magazines, manuscripts, newsletters, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, photocopies, photographs, postcards, posters, programs, student projects slides, audiocassettes, 8mm film, reel to reel video, reel to reel audio, and DVD-Rs.
Biographical note
Brooks McNamara began teaching at NYU's Graduate Drama Department in 1968, and was instrumental in its transformation into the Performance Studies Department, which officially was started in 1980. He founded the Shubert Archives in 1976 and served as its Director for 20 years. McNamara's research, writing, and curatorial pursuits resulted in numerous publications, exhibitions, productions, and archival collections. His life work spanned the fields of theatre history, popular entertainments, public celebrations, and New York performance history. After retiring in 1996, McNamara remained Professor Emeritus of Performance Studies and Director Emeritus of the Shubert Archive. He died in May 2009.
List of Selected Publications:
Books:
The New York Concert Saloon: the Devil's Own Nights. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Gower Champion Dance and American Musical Theatre. With David Payne-Carter and Stephen Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Day of Jubilee : The Great Age Of Public Celebrations In New York, 1788-1909 : Illustrated From The Collections Of The Museum Of The City Of New York. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Inside the Minstrel Mask : Readings In Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy. Edited with Annemarie Bean and James V. Hatch. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1996.
The Merry Muldoons and the Brighteyes Affair. New York: Orchard Books, 1992.
The Shuberts of Broadway: A History Drawn From The Collections Of The Shubert Archive. With the Shubert Archive. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Edwin Booth's Legacy: Treasures From The Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection At The Players. Selected and organized by Raymond Wemmlinger and Brooks McNamara; catalogue by Raymond Wemmlinger and Brooks McNamara; with contributions by Robert A. Carter, José Ferrer and Paul Myers. [New York]: Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, 1989.
Plays from The Contemporary American Theater. New York: New American Library, 1988.
The Drama Review: Thirty Years of Commentary on The Avant-Garde. Edited by Brooks McNamara and Jill Dolan. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, c1986.
American Popular Entertainments: Jokes, Monologues, Bits, and Sketches. [1st Ed.] New York City: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1983.
Step right up. [1st ed.] Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1976.
Theatres, Spaces, Environments: Eighteen Projects. Co-authored with Jerry Rojo and Richard Schechner. New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1975.
The American Playhouse in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969.
Chapters in Books:
"'For laughing purposes only': the literature of American popular entertainment." The American Stage: Social and Economic Issues from the Colonial Period to the Present. [Eds.] Ron Engle and Tice L. Miller. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
"'Something glorius': Greenwich Village and the theater." Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture. [Eds.] Rick Beard and Leslie Berlowitz, with the Museum of the City of New York. New Brunswick, N.J.: Published for the Museum of the City of New York by Rutgers University Press, 1993.
"The entertainment district at the end of the 1930s." Inventing Times Square: Commerce And Culture at the Crossroads of the World. William Robert Taylor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991.
Articles:
"Broadway: A Theatre Historian's Perspective." TDR, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Winter, 2001), pp. 125-128.
"Michael Kirby: 1931-1997." Richard Schechner; Brooks McNamara. TDR, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 5-8.
"Talking." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 39-56.
"Processional Performance: An Introduction." Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett; Brooks McNamara. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 29, No. 3, Processional Performance (Autumn, 1985), pp. 2-5.
"The Medicine Show Log: Reconstructing a Traditional American Entertainment." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 28, No. 3, Reconstruction (Autumn, 1984), pp. 74-97.
"TDR: Memoirs of the Mouthpiece, 1955-1983." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 27, No. 4, Anniversary Issue: Dreams, Proposals, Manifestos (Winter, 1983), pp. 3-21.
"Stuart Sherman's Third Spectacle." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 20, No. 2, American Theatre Issue (Jun., 1976), pp. 47-55.
"An Interview with Percy Press and a Portfolio of Buskers." Percy Press; Brooks McNamara. Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, Popular Theatre (Oct., 1975), pp. 313-322.
"'A Congress of Wonders,' the Rise and Fall of the Dime Museum.' Emerson Society Quarterly, 20:3 (1974), 201-261.
"Popular Entertainments Issue: An Introduction." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 3-4.
"Scenography of Popular Entertainment." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 16-24.
"Spartakiade." John E. Bonn; Nathaniel Buchwald; Brooks McNamara; Mady Schuman. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 17, No. 4, International Festival Issue (Dec., 1973), pp. 99-112.
"Vessel: The Scenography of Meredith Monk. An Interview." Brooks McNamara; Meredith Monk. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar., 1972), pp. 87-103.
"The Indian Medicine Show." Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 431-445.
"Paterson Strike Pageant." Brooks McNamara; Jessie Ashley; F. Sumner Boyd; Mabel Dodge; William D. Haywood; John Reed; Margaret H. Sanger. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer, 1971), pp. 60-71.
"Scene Design: 1876-1965 Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 13, No. 2, Naturalism Revisited (Winter, 1968), pp. 77-91.
"Group III: Developing and Improving Artistic Leadership." Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 20, No. 2, International Conference on Theatre Education and Development (Aug., 1968), pp. 291-297.
"David Douglass and the Beginnings of American Theater Architecture." Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 3 (1967), pp. 112-135.
"The Stratford Jubilee: Dram to Garrick's Vanity." Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2 (May, 1962), pp. 135-140.
Arrangement
Materias are arranged in six series:
- Series I: Subject Files
- Series II: Printed Materials
- Series III: Talks, Papers
- Series IV: Anthologies [source materials]
- Series V: Plays, written with Laurence Senelick
- Series VI: Course Materials and Student Papers
Scope and Contents
The Brooks McNamara Papers reflect McNamara's life work as a scholar and professor at NYU. The collection is comprised almost entirely of McNamara's subject files on the expansive breadth of theater, drama, and performance in early American, early British, and contemporary American life.
Organized in one main series of McNamara's subject files, as well as five smaller series which document his scholarly and creative writing, the collection features prominent sections of resources on Broadway, Circuses, Environmental Performance, Fairs and Festivals, Medicine Shows, Minstrelsy, Street Entertainments, Theatre and Theatres, and Vaudeville, as well as McNamara's own work as a scholar. One is able to trace the early development of Performance Studies as a discipline through McNamara's framing of "Popular Entertainments": performance and theatre on the stage, in the street, and in everyday life.
Collection materials consist of articles, brochures, catalogues, correspondence, drafts, magazines, manuscripts, newsletters, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, photocopies, photographs, postcards, posters, programs, student projects slides, audiocassettes, 8mm film, reel to reel video, reel to reel audio, and DVD-Rs.
The general date range for the collection spans the early-1970s to the mid-1990s, as this is when McNamara was actively collecting these materials. However, there are also historical pamphlets and booklets dating from the turn of the century through the 1960s.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by Brooks McNamara, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Brooks McNamara Papers; MSS 162; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was transferred from the Free Library of Philadelphia and donated by Brooks McNamara in 2005; additional materials were donated in 2009. The accession numbers associated with this collection are 2005.162 and 2009.162.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact fales.library@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. Born-digital materials have not been transferred and may not be available to researchers. Researchers may request access copies. To request that material be transferred, or if you are unsure if material has been transferred, please contact fales.library@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Physical Facet
in 3 DVD-RsAbout this Guide
Processing Information
The 2009 accretion was added to the end of Series I: Subject Files. Slides were rehoused in archival slide preservers and new acid-free folders; original order and original folder titles were maintained. One audio reel and two film reels were re-housed in appropriate containers.
