- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"simple", "value"=>"5.8 linear feet (14 boxes)"}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"*T-MSS 1967-002", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"21392", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unittitle
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{"value"=>"Vincent J. Donehue papers"}
- repository
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{"value"=>"The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Billy Rose Theatre Division."}
- abstract
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{"value"=>"Donehue was a director working primarily for the New York stage and television in the 1950s and 1960s. He also directed two films in Hollywood. The collection includes personal correspondence; production files containing notes, letters, partial scripts, cast lists, contracts and financial papers; complete scripts, many for television shows; clippings of reviews; and a few manuscripts and photographs."}
- prefercite
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{"value"=>"<p>Vincent Donehue Papers, *T-Mss 1967-002, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.</p>"}
- origination
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{"value"=>"Donehue, Vincent J., 1915-1966", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Director Vincent J. Donehue was born on September 22, 1915 in Whitehall, New York to Julian B. Donehue and Helen E. Vincent. His father was director of redevelopment in Albany, New York. Vincent Donehue was educated at Christian Brothers Academy and the State University of New York and studied for the stage with Tamara Daykarhanova and with Fanny Bradshaw at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon, England. He made his radio debut in 1937 and in the years prior to World War II was heard on over 1500 radio shows. He also acted on Broadway during this time appearing as Cinna, the poet in Orson Welles' production of <span class=\"title\">Julius Caesar</span>, and in Katharine Cornell's <span class=\"title\">Herod and Marianne</span>, Guthrie McClintic's <span class=\"title\">Christmas Eve</span>, the Theatre Guild's <span class=\"title\">Jeremiah</span>, by Stefan Zweig, John Golden's <span class=\"title\">The Old Foolishness</span> by Paul Vincent Carroll, and <span class=\"title\">My Fair Ladies</span> with Betty Furness and Celeste Holm.</p> <p>Donehue enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1941 and served through 1945 attaining the rank of Major. While overseas he co-authored, produced and directed a play San Francisco which toured France and Germany. After the war he and playwright Horton Foote established Productions, Inc., an acting school and professional theater repertory company in Washington D.C., sharing the responsibilities of producer, director and manager together. This repertory company staged productions ranging from J. M. Synge's <span class=\"title\">Deidre of the Spirits</span> to William Saroyan's <span class=\"title\">My Heart's in the Highlands</span>.</p> <p>In 1950 Donehue signed as a director for NBC-TV's <span class=\"title\">Chevrolet Theatre</span> with Fred Coe, who had been his summer stock roommate back in 1935. Subsequently Donehue was producer-director for the <span class=\"title\">Gabby Hayes Show</span> dramas, an alternate director for <span class=\"title\">Robert Montgomery Presents</span> (1952), director of <span class=\"title\">Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse</span> (1952-1956), and <span class=\"title\">Producer's Showcase</span> (1957-1958). He staged many teleplays during TV's \"golden age\" including Thornton Wilder's <span class=\"title\">The Skin of Our Teeth</span>, Robert E. Sherwood's <span class=\"title\">Reunion in Vienna</span>, Clare Booth Luce's <span class=\"title\">The Women</span>, Paddy Chayefsky's <span class=\"title\">The Big Deal</span>, William Faulkner's <span class=\"title\">The Sound and the Fury</span>, Rudolf Besier's <span class=\"title\">The Barretts of Wimpole Street</span> with Katharine Cornell, and the Mary Martin production of J. M. Barrie's <span class=\"title\">Peter Pan</span> (1960), one of the first television productions filmed on magnetic tape.</p> <p>Donehue's career as a director on Broadway began with his staging of Horton Foote's <span class=\"title\">The Trip to Bountiful</span> with Lillian Gish in 1953. This was followed by Foote's <span class=\"title\">Traveling Lady</span> (1954), Tennessee William's <span class=\"title\">Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton</span> (1955), Dore Schary's <span class=\"title\">Sunrise at Campobello</span> (1958), Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein's <span class=\"title\">The Sound of Music</span> (1959), Morris L. West's <span class=\"title\">Daughter of Silence</span> (1961), S. N. Behrman's <span class=\"title\">Lord Pengo</span> (1962), Arthur Schwartz's <span class=\"title\">Jennie</span> (1963), and Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert's <span class=\"title\">Catch Me If You Can</span> (1965). He also directed two films: <span class=\"title\">Lonelyhearts</span> (1959) and <span class=\"title\">Sunrise at Campobello</span> (1960), both produced by Dore Schary.</p> <p>Vincent Donehue received a Tony Award and a Film Daily Award for his direction of <span class=\"title\">Sunrise at Campobello</span> and a Director's Guild Award for his television direction of <span class=\"title\">Peter Pan</span>. He died of Hodgkins disease on January 17, 1966 in New York City. He was fifty years old.</p>"}
- custodhist
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{"value"=>"<p>The Vincent J. Donehue Papers, a bequest of the estate of Vincent J. Donehue, arrived at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 1966.</p>"}
- scopecontent
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{"value"=>"<p> The Vincent J. Donehue Papers document the director's professional career bringing plays to the stage and the television screen in the 1950s and early 1960s. The collection consists of correspondence, scripts, notes, contracts, financial reports, manuscripts and clippings. The bulk of the collection is annotated <span class=\"genreform\">scripts</span> for television shows and Broadway plays directed by Donehue and the strength of the collection is here and in the production files which include detailed written discussions with playwrights and producers on script development. There is almost no personal material and nothing from his early career.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Vincent J. Donehue papers are arranged in six series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298286'>Series I: General Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1946-1966</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>7 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series includes letters to Donehue on professional and personal matters from various individuals. Included here are cards from <span class=\"persname\">Horton Foote</span> and <span class=\"persname\">Mary Martin</span>, congratulatory telegrams, miscellaneous letters on a variety of topics, and letters from unidentified individuals. Of interest are the broadcast letters from <span class=\"persname\">Richard Halliday</span> on his trip to Brazil with his wife, Mary Martin, and the warm letters of friendship and thanks to Donehue from <span class=\"persname\">Dore Schary</span>. There are also a couple of letters by Donehue here, but most of his letters are filed under production title in Series II: Production Files.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298294'>Series II: Production Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1957-1966</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 box</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains correspondence, notes, partial scripts, cast lists, contracts and financial reports arranged alphabetically by production title. It includes correspondence discussing scripts with authors <span class=\"persname\">Morris West</span> on <span class=\"title\">Daughter of Silence</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Gore Vidal</span> on <span class=\"title\">Honor</span> which was shown on television's <span class=\"title\">Playwrights 56</span>, and <span class=\"persname\">Robert Penn Warren</span> on <span class=\"title\">Listen to the Mocking Bird</span> which was not produced. Particularly rich are the detailed discussions in notes and letters by Donehue, <span class=\"persname\">Richard Halliday</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Leland Hayward</span> and <span class=\"persname\">Howard Lindsay</span> illuminating the research that went into the development and script changes of <span class=\"title\">The Sound of Music</span>, including notes and transcripts from phone conversations with the <span class=\"persname\">Baroness Maria Von Trapp</span>, whose life was fictionalized in the story, and with Sister Gregory, a nun at Rosary College, who gave guidance on the convent scene. Other productions included are <span class=\"title\">Annie Get Your Gun</span>, <span class=\"title\">Catch Me If You Can</span>, <span class=\"title\">Jennie</span>, <span class=\"title\">Lord Pengo</span>, <span class=\"title\">Lonelyhearts</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Sunrise at Campobello</span>.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298316'>Series III: Manuscripts by Donehue</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1959</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 folder</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p> This file consists of two versions of <span class=\"title\">Leading Ladies in My Life</span> and a copy of <span class=\"title\">A Man in Three Mediums</span> published in <span class=\"title\">Theatre Arts</span>, June 1959.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298318'>Series IV: Clippings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1949-1966</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>21 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Clippings consist of reviews of Donehue's productions, general interviews with him, articles on his family, and clippings on the opening of the Washington Theater Festival at Meridian Hill Park Theatre in 1949 under the auspices of Donehue's Productions, Inc. The National Theater, the capitol's only live theater, had closed down the year before rather than face an integrated audience.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298340'>Series V: Scripts</a></div>\n<div class='series-extent'>12 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Consists of scripts annotated by Donehue for many of the theatrical and television productions he directed. Includes a complete run of the weekly Gabby Hayes series [1950-1951].</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21392#c298425'>Series VI: Miscellaneous ephemera</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1957</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 folder</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Consists of one award Donehue received for the television production of <span class=\"title\">Annie Get Your Gun</span> [1957] and an unidentified photograph [1959].</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p> <ul> <li>Series I: General Correspondence</li> <li>Series II: Production Files</li> <li>Series III: Manuscripts by Donehue Series</li> <li>IV: Clippings</li> <li>Series V: Scripts <ul> <li>Sub-series 1 - Theater and film</li> <li>Sub-series 2 - Television Series</li></ul></li> <li>VI: Miscellaneous ephemera</li></ul></p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- separatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>Designs from the Vincent J. Donehue Papers - *T-VIM 1967-002</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Photocopying prohibited.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>For permission to publish, contact the Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
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{"value"=>"<p>Vincent J. Donehue Correspondence and Ephemera - *T-Mss 1999-007</p>"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1946-1965", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1946/1965"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1946
- date_inclusive_end
-
1965
- acqinfo
-
{"date"=>"1966", "materials"=>"Papers", "source"=>"Estate of Vincent J. Donehue", "method"=>"bequest", "value"=>"Papers: bequest, Estate of Vincent J. Donehue, 1966"}
- note
-
{"value"=>"<p>See separate catalog record for Designs and Plans. Photographs and programs were separated to the Library's Photographs and Programs Files</p>", "encodinganalog"=>"500"}
- keydate
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1946
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by Elisabeth Elkind.</p>"}
- date_start
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1946
- date_end
-
1965