{"value"=>"<p>Series documents the performance life of the Negro Ensemble Company. This series is made up of six subseries: Season Files, Broadway Files, Tour Files, Clippings, Play Scripts, Special Projects, and Restricted Files.</p> <p>The Season Files, 1965-1992 (14. 5 lin. ft.) document all the productions mounted in NEC's first home theater, The St. Mark's Playhouse in Greenwich Village, and later, Theater Four. (A list of all productions, by season, author, and title is included in Appendix A). Occasionally other New York City theaters were used for Negro Ensemble Company productions (e. g., the Lambs' Theater, The Cherry Lane Theater) and these are also included among the Season Files. The folders are arranged by theater season, with general and special events files for each season leading the list, followed by files for each play, usually in the order in which they were performed. This series' organization, for the most part, is in the same order created by the NEC, as are the folder titles, with very few exceptions. While the play titles fall in approximate chronological order of production, in some instances conflicting or missing information may have resulted in a few plays being misfiled.</p> <p>There is some confusion about the performance dates of several productions of Two Can Play mounted between the 1984-1985 and 1987-1988 theater seasons. The play was produced and had a highly successful run at Theater Four. It closed according to schedule in order to produce the next title in the series, but was quickly re-mounted at another theater, perhaps in hopes of reaping continued success and financial benefit. Two Can Play was then re-produced a third time, but it is unclear from the materials in which season it was re-produced, particularly as the files for all three of these productions came together in one bundle. Folders were placed in the 1984-85 season, (produced twice), and in the 1987-1988 season as could best be determined by the information found in the records themselves. However, the production list supplied by the NEC lists productions in 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons only.</p> <p>The Broadway Files, 1972-1990 (. 8 lin ft.) include production materials from three plays, First Breeze of Summer, Home, and The River Niger. The folders are arranged alphabetically, and contain various types of information including advertisements, contracts, correspondence, playbills, programs, and subject files. This small series does not contain every Broadway production mounted by the Negro Ensemble Company; most notably absent is their biggest success, A Soldier's Story.</p> <p>The Tour Files, 1972-1990, (6 lin. ft.) include materials similar to the Season files, with the addition of itineraries, or audition materials, and occasional freight and cargo information for some productions. Most of the tour materials contained detailed technical information about the performance venue itself. Since this type of information can be found in published form, it was removed from the collection. Ground plans and light plots with related hook-up instructions for each particular venue were also removed, since each plot or design plan is merely a duplicate set in a different stage size or shape per individual venue. If a particular item provides the only example of the ground plan or light plot for a play within all the production materials, whether it was from the Tour, Season, or Broadway materials, then that item was kept. A set of light plots and/or ground plans for the 1980-1981 production of Home were retained as a sample of the working materials created for the average production. This set was chosen because it is the most complete, even though there are plans missing for several venues. Lighting and set design materials were also kept for A Soldier's Play because the set was uniquely designed to allow the same set pieces to be arranged to fit into each of three different types of stage shapes; diagrams of the different set-ups are included in the records. Oversized items such as set designs in stapled multiple sheets, light plots, ground plans (sometimes called floor plans), and oversized materials in fragile condition have been filed in an oversized box (see box 67). A removal form was placed in the file where the item would logically be found.</p> <p>It is unclear whether the complete body of tour records was accessioned into the collection. There are large numbers of files for some of the productions, or multiple tours for an individual play (e. g., Home), on the one hand, but it appears that other productions merely had long-term engagements in one venue outside of New York City (e. g., The Isle is Full of Noises).</p> <p>Posters for the following productions can be found in box 56: Black Circles, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Contribution, Daddy Goodness, Eden, Kongi's Harvest, Malcochon, The River Niger, A Soldier's Play, Song of the Lusitanian Bogey, String, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Two Can Play. There is also a poster for a benefit for the NEC featuring writer Nikki Giovanni. In addition, box 57 contains art boards and mock-up materials which were used to design posters and programs for several NEC productions. Some of the productions represented in these folders include Abercrombie Apocalypse, Black Body Blues, Brotherhood, The Brownsville Raid, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Daughters of the Mock, Day of Absence, First Breeze of Summer, The Great MacDaddy, The Harangues, Man Better Man, The Michigan, Nevis Mountain Dew, Old Phantoms, A Soldier's Play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Two Can Play, and Zooman and the Sign. Though the majority of the productions can be found singularly (e. g., First Breeze of Summer), a few are listed two or more to a document (e. g., The Harangues/Day of Absence & Brotherhood). This box of materials also contains miscellaneous images of the NEC including photomechanical reproductions of the cast, scenes from plays or from programs.</p> <p>The Clippings File, 1968-1989 (1.4 lin. ft.) covers a variety of NEC productions, in a variety of venues (i. e., St. Mark's Playhouse, Broadway, tours and television). The productions are listed alphabetically and include Eden, The First Breeze of Summer, From the Mississippi Delta, God is a (Guess What) ?, The Great MacDaddy, Home, Livin Fat, Nevis Mountain Dew, Old Phantoms, Plays From Africa, The River Niger, A Soldier's Play, Song of the Lusitanian Bogey, The Sty of the Blind Pig, and Two Can Play. There are also files for founders Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks, playwrights Charles Fuller, Joseph Walker, and Samm-Art Williams, and actors Francis Foster, Stephanie Mills, Roxie Roker, Esther Rolle, and Richard Roundtree. General information files also exist for the Negro Ensemble Company, the National Black Theater Festival and black theater in general.</p> <p>The Play Scripts sub-subseries (72. 8 lin. ft) includes solicited and unsolicited scripts received by the Negro Ensemble Company. Many are complete, final versions and many are not. The Play Scripts received by the company that were performed in a reading, a staged reading, or developed into a full production have been separated into three groups: production, on-site, and off-site (*Off-site storage play scripts can be retrieved within 48 hours. Please contact the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division for more information). play scripts. Production scripts are those that were produced by NEC; they are annotated and can be found in boxes 60 to 67. Scripts denoted by two asterisks are legal-sized and can be found in box 63. The Special Projects files contains production materials (scripts, correspondence, contracts, rehearsal schedules) for several NEC productions which were produced for television and film including Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, First Breeze of Summer, and A Soldier's Play.</p> <p>The on-site play scripts consist of scripts by playwrights who have more than one script either read or produced by the company (e. g., Charles Fuller, Steve Carter). These scripts may have been produced by the company, but are not annotated. On-site scripts are cataloged, and are accessible by playwright's name, title of play, or by the call number Sc MG 345, in the New York Public Library's catalog (CATNYP).</p> <p>The last group, off-site play scripts, consist of scripts that are distinguished from the other categories in three ways; 1) these play scripts were un-annotated, 2) it does not appear that the plays were read or produced, and 3) the authors of these plays have only one title in the entire collection. A listing of these plays by the author's name and title appears in Appendix B.</p> <p>The Restricted Files, 1967-1992, (2 lin. ft.) consist of contracts from 1967 to 1989 containing personal information. Permission from the curator is required to access these files.</p>"}