Scope and arrangement
The Viveca Lindfors papers date from 1945 to 1990 and document Lindfors' career and personal life through scripts, correspondence, writings, notes, programs, promotional material, clippings, and other documents. Materials are chiefly in English, but also in Swedish.
The collection contains a large amount of material concerning Lindfors' one-woman show, I Am a Woman, which she toured in the 1970s. Material related to I Am a Woman includes scripts, performance notes, publicity materials, contracts, financial statements, programs, press clippings, and letters from audience members. Notes and correspondence regarding the publication of the script are also present. Additional records regarding the administration and promotion of I Am a Woman can be found in the Rita Fredricks papers (*T-Mss 2011-260). Fredricks was a producer for I Am a Woman; some of her administrative files are with the Lindfors papers.
Materials concerning Lindfors' other performances, lectures, and workshops in the 1970s are mixed with the I Am a Woman materials. Her acting career outside of the 1970s is only sparsely documented. Materials from 1945 to the 1960s, and from the 1980s, include programs, clippings, and contracts. The earliest items in the collection are film contracts in Swedish. Files from the 1950s and 1960s also contain notes, diary entries, and transcripts of interviews in which Lindfors discussed her personal and professional life. The collection contains files related to the planning and administration of the Berkshire Theatre Festival (1966). The collection also holds a 1967 letter that George Tabori wrote about the reception of The Cannibals.
The collection contains a number of handwritten notes and short typescripts written in the 1970s, which may have been drafts for Lindfors' autobiography or other projects. These writings contain personal recollections regarding her family life and her film and stage roles. They also contain reflections related to I Am a Woman and to the themes of womanhood and identity that the show addresses. Personal correspondence is interspersed throughout these notes and writings, including correspondence with Harold Taylor. The collection also contains scripts for theater, film, and television. Scripts in the collection are mostly clean copies, though some have annotations and corrections. Playwrights represented in the scripts include Tabori, Herbert Achternbusch (in German), Paul Austin, Saul Bellow, Helen Duberstein, and Ruth Herschberger.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into two categories: Productions and Biographical Material, and Scripts. Scripts are arranged alphabetically by title, with the exception of plays by Helen Duberstein, Ruth Herschberger, Ferenc Karinthy, and George Tabori, which are arranged alphabetically by the playwright's surname.