{"value"=>"<p>This series is grouped into the subseries Ossie Davis Projects; Ruby Dee Projects; and Joint Projects. The files comprise papers related to Davis and Dee's creative and professional activities as actors, authors, narrators, and directors.</p> <p>The Ossie Davis Projects subseries reflects Davis' prolific writing practice, which contains a prodigious amount of scripts, treatments, one-acts, partial scenes, short stories, plots, plans, outlines, and ideas. These files include a mixture of published, produced, unfinished, and unproduced works, and feature recurrent themes of civil rights figures and historical events. There are compositions for stage, television, and film, as well as a number of short stories. Davis' creative evolution and the progression of his projects are illustrated in some of his early notes and ideas, as well as the initial stages of works that later came to fruition. Among Davis' produced works, there is extensive documentation of scripts he penned for Local 1199, as well as legal files, financial documentation, correspondence, and production materials for <span class=\"title\">Purlie Victorious</span>, <span class=\"title\">Countdown at Kusini</span>, <span class=\"title\">Sybil</span>, and <span class=\"title\">With Ossie and Ruby</span>.</p> <p>Ruby Dee Projects are arranged into sections titled Adaptations, Performances, and Workshops; Book Projects; and Various Writings. Her files hold administrative materials, proposals, meeting agendas, correspondence, scripts, financial documentation, notes, drafts, and original manuscripts. Dee's adaptation of <span class=\"title\">The Disappearance</span> is specifically well-documented, featuring scripts, correspondence, budgets, cast lists, and notes. There is also copious documentation for both the <span class=\"title\">My One Good Nerve</span> and <span class=\"title\">Zora is My Name!</span> book projects that include manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, and administrative materials. Of special interest is material tracing the development of the <span class=\"title\">My One Good Nerve</span> book into a performance piece, which includes documentation of a private performance for guests at her home in 1993.</p> <p>Joint Projects hold material generated from the couple's many artistic collaborations. The most thoroughly documented projects are the <span class=\"title\">Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour</span> radio show, <span class=\"title\">With Ossie & Ruby</span> television series, their production company Emmalyn Enterprises, and their joint memoir <span class=\"title\">With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together</span>.</p> <p>The <span class=\"title\">Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour</span> subseries hold scripts, notebooks, interview transcripts, a series breakdown, a book proposal, and the program airing list, while the <span class=\"title\">With Ossie & Ruby</span> files contains scripts, financial files, legal papers, promotional material, and photographs. The Emmalyn Enterprises materials largely address the creative and business project proposals that were planned and conceived of by Davis and Dee in association with their production company. These files hold detailed proposals, rights and agreements, meeting minutes, and other administrative documents. There are files present for a number of works that were not ultimately produced. Among the produced works are <span class=\"title\">Pioneers in Black Business</span>, <span class=\"title\">A Walk Through the 20th Century With Bill Moyers: The Second American Revolution</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy</span>.</p>"}