Scope and arrangement
Jo Mielziner's designs and technical drawings span the years 1924-1976, reflecting his long and varied career as set and lighting designer, theater architect and consultant. This collection consists of oversized production items, which include technical drawings, painter's elevations, rough sketches, set renderings, light plots, detail drawings, preliminary drawings, and paint and materials samples. Almost every play, musical, ballet, opera or project Mielziner worked on is represented and, for the most part, can be followed from inception to finished technical drawings.
Included are theatrical productions (Boxes 1-128), ballets and operas (Boxes 129-130), and architectural and industrial design projects (Boxes 131-138).
Also included are renovation plans for Mielziner's Dakota apartments, his Newtown, Connecticut house, and Kenneth McKenna's house in Truro, Massachusetts (Box 139).
Other oversized materials are: unidentified Mielziner set designs; original art work by Henry McCarter, Hugh Hardy, and Robert Barnhart; rough sketches by Roger Planchon (Box 140); and original drawings for Mielziner's book The Shapes of Our Theatre (Box 141).