Irish Repertory Theatre Records

Call Number

AIA.080

Date

1988-ongoing, inclusive

Creator

Irish Repertory Theatre

O'Reilly, Ciarán

Extent

27.5 Linear Feet

in 32 manuscript boxes, 1 half manuscript box, 10 record cartons, 1 flat box, 3 oversize flat boxes, and 2 flat file folders

Extent

25 VHS

Extent

20 Digital_Betacam

Extent

317 Gigabytes

in 73,500 computer files

Extent

4 websites

in 4 archived websites.

Language of Materials

Materials in English.

Abstract

The Irish Repertory Theatre (IRT) was founded in New York, New York in 1988 by Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O'Reilly. The IRT produces Irish and Irish-American plays and musicals year-round. The Irish Repertory Theatre Records document 28 seasons of productions, from 1988 to 2016. Productions include The Plough and the Stars, The Irish...And How They Got That Way, and Finian's Rainbow. The records contain press and marketing materials, correspondence, scripts, legal documents, financial documents, original artwork, video recordings, and posters. The material consists of paper, born-digital, websites, and audiovisual material.

Historical Note

The Irish Repertory Theatre (IRT) was founded in New York, New York in 1988 by Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O'Reilly. As of 2018, Moore is the Artistic Director and O'Reilly is the Managing Director. The two met in the late 1980s in a Hudson Guild Theater production of Hugh Leonard's Summer, and decided to collaborate on a production of Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars in September 1988. Their profits from that production were enough to stage another show, and in this way the IRT was founded. The IRT produces Irish and Irish-American plays and musicals year-round, both classics of Irish theater as well as new works by emerging Irish and Irish-American writers. The Theatre moved to its current location, as of 2018, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in 1995. The IRT, its staff, and their productions have garnered critical acclaim and industry awards for their work.

Arrangement

The records are arranged into the following five series, with two of these series further arranged into subseries.

Series I. Production Materials, 1989-2016

Series II. New Works Reading Series, 2005-2014

Subseries II. A. Selected Plays, 2006-2014 Subseries II. B. Rejected Script Files, 2005-2014

Series III. Administrative Records, 1990-2013

Subseries III. A. General Administrative Records, 1990-2013 Subseries III. B. Producing Director Records, 1994-2003 Subseries III. C. General Manager Records, 1997-2004 Subseries III. D. Membership Manager Records, 1999-2004 Subseries III.E. Marketing Department Records, 2003-2016

Series IV. Financial and Legal Records, 1989-2010

Series V. Archived Websites, September 2019-ongoing

Scope and Contents

The Irish Repertory Theatre (IRT) Records document 28 seasons of productions staged by the Theatre, from 1988 to 2016. Productions include The Plough and the Stars, The Irish...And How They Got That Way, and Finian's Rainbow. The records document the work of various members and departments of the IRT, including Ciaran O'Reilly, the Producing Director; the Marketing Department; the General Manager; the Literary Department; and the Membership Manager. The records contain press and marketing materials, correspondence, scripts, legal documents, financial documents, original artwork, videos, and posters. The material consists of paper, born-digital, the website, and audiovisual recordings. The press and marketing materials constitute the bulk of the collection and include programs, press releases, photographs, slides, and video recordings of productions and the IRT's annual benefits. The correspondence includes rejection letters; negotiations for rights, licensing, and productions; and communications with actors, producers, directors, and IRT members. The collection includes scripts used in productions and those submitted for the New Works Reading Series. The legal documents include contracts as well as court documents from legal proceedings in which the IRT was involved. The financial records include season and production budgets, and box office receipts and statements. The original artwork includes paintings and drawings for set designs and posters.

Subjects

Genres

Theater programs.; Photographs.; Slides (photographs); Web sites.

People

O'Reilly, Ciarán (Role: Former owner)

Topics

Theater -- Production and direction.; Repertory theater -- New York (State) -- New York -- 20th century.; Irish drama.; Off-Broadway theater; Repertory theater -- New York (State) -- New York -- 21st century.; Theater management -- New York (State) -- New York

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions, with the exception of certain files pertaining to legal proceedings in Series IV.

Conditions Governing Use

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Irish Repertory Theatre, the creator of this collection, were transferred to New York University in June 2016 by Ciarán O'Reilly. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Irish Repertory Theatre Records; AIA 080; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Irish Repertory Theatre Records; AIA 080; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials are stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact special.collections@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to your research visit to coordinate access.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Ciarán O'Reilly in June 2016. The accession number associated with this gift is 2016.055.

In 2019, http://irishrep.org/ was added to the web archive through the use of Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. The accession number associated with this website is 2019.143. In October 2021, https://www.youtube.com/c/IrishRep/videos/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2022.017. In September 2023, https://www.youtube.com/@IrishRep/videos/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2023.087. In October 2024, https://irishrepertorytheatre.passgallery.com/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2024.065.

In March 2025, Marion Casey transferred an accretion consisting of a mounted, oversized poster for the production of The Shaughraun; the accession number associated with this transfer is 2025.029.

Custodial History

The collection was transferred to Bobst Library from the Irish Repertory Theatre offices at 132 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011 on June 30, 2016. It was arranged by season, boxed and inventoried by Jessica Layman (Director of Marketing), in consultation with Lisa Fane (General Manager). Much of the collection was in temporary storage with The Padded Wagon, in the company's temporary offices at 345 Park Avenue, 17th floor, NYC, or in the company's temporary performance space at Theatre DR2, 103 East 15th Street while their permanent home was under renovation from 2014-2016.

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 [repository contact information] 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. An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.

Appraisal

Items of little research value were deaccessioned, including personal financial documents related to performers and customers, files related to staff performance, unopened commercial recordings of music and audiobooks unrelated to the Irish Repertory Theatre, clippings of reviews, Zip and floppy disks containing graphic design files used to create promotional ephemera for productions, and Theatre souvenirs. Off-air recordings of reviews of IRT productions were deaccessioned.

Take Down Policy

Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.

If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.

Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.

Separated Materials

One recording of The Irish...And How They Got That Way on VHS was transferred to the Avery Fisher Center in July 2018.

Collection processed by

Megan O'Shea and Kate Fisher

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-04-18 18:25:57 UTC.

Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

Series were created according to the arrangement in which the collection was received and material was arranged together intellectually. Paper material for each series was brought together physically, with oversized paper materials, audiovisual material, and physical digital media housed together as appropriate. Separation sheets were created to sustain the intellectual relationship between items.

Paper material was housed in archival folders and boxes. Physical digital media and audiovisual material were housed in archival boxes. Duplicates in all formats were deaccessioned. Preservation photocopies were created for material originally printed on thermal fax paper.

Material in Series IV was determined to be protected under the attorney work-product doctrine. This was separated from the collection in March 2018 pending a decision regarding its inclusion in the collection.

In August 2019, duplicate material and off-air recordings were returned to the donor. Floppy disks, Zip disks, optical media, and one hard drive were forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged in Forensic Toolkit.

New York University Libraries follows professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity of the content.

In December 2019, the archived website was added to the finding aid as Series V. Additional websites were added from 2021-2024.

In September 2024, digital objects for processed electronic records were created to conform to current practices. The inventory was reorganized so that individual formats were listed separately. New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content.

In March 2025, a mounted, oversized poster for the production of The Shaughraun, was unframed, rehoused in a flat file folder, and intellectually incorporated into Series I. with the other materials for this production.

Revisions to this Guide

August 2019: Updated by Megan O'Shea to reflect return of deaccessioned material to donor

November 2024: Edited by Nicole Greenhouse for additional administration information and the incorporation of archived websites

September 2024: Digital objects for processed electronic records were created to conform to current practices by Aki Snyder

March 2025: Edited by Rachel Searcy to reflect 2025 accretion

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives