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Creator
Harris, Willie Thomas
Call number
Sc MIRS Harris 1997-18
Physical description
1 audio_recording
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Willie Thomas Harris audio collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

Playwright Willie Thomas Harris (d. 1989) is the author of Harlem in Paree and other plays. The collection contains one audio recording of the music from Harris's 1977 musical Harlem in Paree.

Biographical/historical information

Playwright Willie Thomas Harris (d. 1989) is the author of the musical Harlem in Paree and other plays.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris attended the Art Students League in New York City from 1948 to 1949, and studied creative writing and playwriting at Columbia University from 1951 to 1955. Four of his full-length plays were produced in Los Angeles, California, in 1961, and in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1963. From 1965 to 1978, Harris lived in Paris, France, where he wrote several plays and the musical Harlem in Paree in 1977. He continued writing after returning to the US, where his play, Not a Single Blade of Grass, was produced at the 18th Street Playhouse and won the Theater of Renewal Award for Best Play in 1986. Harris died in 1989.

Scope and arrangement

The collection contains one audio recording of the music from Willie Thomas Harris's 1977 musical Harlem in Paree.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Sharon Harris, 1997.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Nathan Evans. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist. Finding aid published in 2025.

Separated material

See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Willie Thomas Harris play scripts, Sc MG 613.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.