Scope and arrangement
The Tunc Yalman papers (1924-2001) primarily document Yalman's writing and directing career from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. The papers hold correspondence, programs, clippings, scripts, resumes, photographs, and writings.
Correspondence, programs, photographs, and scripts regarding some plays directed, adapted, or written by Yalman are arranged in project files. The largest of these files documents The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, and holds three annotated scripts, production correspondence, and clippings. Other project files cover The Trial of the Catonsville Nine; La Turista (a play by Sam Shepard); Yalman's adaptations of The Devil's General (from the book by Carl Zuckmayer) and The Liar; and Yalman's plays Mayerling, or The Advantages of Deodorant; The Myrmidons; and A Ball for the Imaginative. Correspondence regarding Yalman's plays mostly discusses their publication prospects, except for The Myrmidons, which was produced when Yalman was studying at the Yale School of Drama.
Other plays directed by Yalman are evidenced in the program files, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre files, the Yale University Theater files, and files for the North Carolina School for the Arts and Wright State University. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater files contain folders for individual productions as well as annual reports, clippings, general correspondence, and photographs.
The correspondence file mostly contains letters to Yalman from agents, producers, theater companies, publishers, schools, colleagues, and friends. Correspondents include the Rockefeller Foundation, George Freedley (Curator of the Theatre Division of the New York Public Library in the 1950s and 1960s), Alfred Lunt, Bramwell Fletcher, Sam Wanamaker, Jessica Tandy, Joan Fontaine, John Houseman, and Anthony Perkins.
The writings contain manuscripts, typescripts, or copies of published essays by Yalman. Titles include Some Generalities on the Director's Choice of the Play, On the Artist and His Audience, Notes After a Jed Harris "Lecture", and The Regions Through a Perspective.
A separate photographs file holds formal and informal portraits of Yalman, some taken by Carl Van Vechten. One features Yalman with the English director Tyrone Guthrie.
Two small files relate to Thornton Wilder and The Lincoln School in Manhattan. The Wilder file contains letters from Wilder and his sister, Isabel; Wilder's memorial program; and a published copy of A Project for a Theatrical Presentation of The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighiere by Norman Bel Geddes, signed by Wilder. The file for the Lincoln School contains the 1939 yearbook, photographs, a student handbook, and letters regarding reunions.
The resumes and clippings file holds general documentation of Yalman's career from the 1960s forward.
Arrangement
The papers are arranged by format or subject.