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Creator
Button, Jeanne
Call number
*T-Vim 2018-012
Physical description
14 linear feet (48 boxes, 7 oversize folders)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Jeanne Button and MacDonald Eaton designs and papers, *T-Vim 2018-012. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Repository
Billy Rose Theatre Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply

Jeanne Button (1930-2017) designed costumes for Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, as well as for dance, opera, film, and television. Her second husband, MacDonald Eaton (1929-2013), was a set and production designer for television and stage, as well as a painter. The Jeanne Button and MacDonald Eaton designs and papers, dating from 1950 to 2015, document Button's and Eaton's designs, careers, and art, as well as the career of Button's son, actor Raphael Sbarge.

Biographical/historical information

Jeanne Button (1930-2017) was a costume designer for Broadway, Off-Broadway, university, and regional theater productions, as well as for dance, opera, film, and television. Born in Cincinnati, she graduated at her parents' urging with a degree in home economics from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie Mellon University). Button decided instead that she wanted to learn costume design, and taught herself to draw, earning a scholarship at the Yale School of Drama.

She launched her career in 1967 with her designs for Macbird!, an Off-Broadway production which earned her the Henry Hewes Design Award from the American Theater Wing. Other Off-Broadway productions she worked on were Twelfth Night and Macbeth for The Public Theater (1989); The Crucible; and many others.

Button's first job on Broadway was for The Watering Place (1969). Numerous productions for Broadway as well as regional theaters followed, including Henry V (1969), The Robber Bridegroom (1975-1976), Wings (1979), Richard III (1979), Arsenic and Old Lace (1986), and The Twilight of the Golds (1993). Button worked with theater companies around the country, including The Acting Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Alley Theatre (Houston), and the American Shakespeare Festival. Button also designed for opera (La Bohème and The Ring), and ballet, including Trey McIntyre's productions of Aliss In Wonderland and Peter Pan for the Houston Ballet in the early 2000s.

In later years, Button was a professor of costume design at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Button married Stephen Sbarge, a playwright she met at Yale, but the couple divorced; they had a son named Raphael, who became an actor. Her second husband, MacDonald Eaton (1929-2013), whom she married in 1981, was a production designer and painter. After receiving his B.F.A. in drama from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952, he served in the U.S. Army Pictoral Center before he began designing for Off-Broadway productions. From the mid-1950s to 1962, Eaton worked at ABC as a production designer before moving to CBS. He returned to ABC in 1975 to be the scenic artist for the soap opera One Life To Live, a job he held for 15 years. During this time he was an active painter and exhibited his work in group shows, as well as in three one-man shows. Eaton moved to New Orleans with Jeanne Button and was an adjunct professor of production design and scenic art at Tulane University. He also taught painting privately, and designed the sets for the Houston Ballet's production of Aliss In Wonderland.

Scope and arrangement

The Jeanne Button and MacDonald Eaton designs and papers, dating from 1950 to 2015, document Button's and Eaton's designs, careers, and art, as well as the career of Button's son, actor Raphael Sbarge. They are arranged in two series.

Series I: Jeanne Button Files comprises the bulk of the collection. It represents her work for Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theaters around the United States, ballet, film, and television. These files hold sketches, drawings, complete designs, fabric swatches, costume bibles, photographs, letters, programs, clippings, posters, and other documentation. Extensive material exists for productions such as Arsenic and Old Lace, Big River, La Bohème, Equus, Macbird!, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Robber Bridegroom, and Twelfth Night. The files for the Trey McIntyre ballet Peter Pan include a video of rehearsals.

Also present are Button's personal files of letters, resumes, family photographs, and clippings, including memorabilia of Raphael Sbarge's career.

Series II: MacDonald Eaton Files includes Eaton's stage and television designs; photographs and reproductions of his paintings; and a scrapbook containing a biography, clippings, and his writings.

The Jeanne Button and MacDonald Eaton designs and papers are arranged in two series:

  • Series I: Jeanne Button Files
    1952-2015

    This series is in three divisions: Production Files, Personal Papers, and Raphael Sbarge Files.

    The Production Files, which comprise the bulk of the collection, primarily document the projects on which Button worked as a costume designer. The content for each production varies, but most files contain at least sketches or drawings of costumes for characters in pencil, ink, chalk, or paint. Additional content includes fabric swatches; costume bibles; letters or correspondence with directors and producers; photographs of actors in costumes, or on stage; programs and season brochures; and clippings. The clippings contain images of research or inspiration for Button as well as reviews or articles about productions.

    Notes in the container list specify the producer or the venue of the production, when known. (These are sometimes the same, for example, the Great Lakes Theater Festival and the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas). Some, particularly the Acting Company, were touring productions. In some cases, Button worked on multiple productions of plays with different producers. Productions with the most documentation are Arsenic and Old Lace, Big River, La Bohème, Broadway, The Crucible, Equus, Henry V, Inherit The Wind, Macbird!, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Robber Bridegroom, and Twelfth Night, as well as the Trey McIntyre ballets Aliss In Wonderland and Peter Pan. The best-represented producers include The Acting Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and the Alley Theatre.

    Three items or files contain material from multiple productions:. Button compiled a portfolio of her work in the 1990s; a slidebook holds images of productions, as well as research photographs; and there are posters for 14 productions. See the container list for details on all three.

    Personal Papers include a set of clippings about Button's career; programs for productions which may not be otherwise documented in the collection; resumes; diplomas and honors from stage unions; letters from colleagues, friends, and family; and family photographs.

    The Raphael Sbarge Files, compiled by Button, document Sbarge's acting career through clippings, programs, photographs, and letters. The letters are from Sbarge to Button.

  • Series II: MacDonald Eaton Files
    1950s-2005

    This series contains Eaton's set and stage designs and drawings; photographs of stages, sets, and Eaton's paintings; art created during Eaton's schooling at the Carnegie Institute of Technology; a scrapbook; and an annotated script for an unidentified production of Death of a Salesman.

    The set and stage designs, in the form of drawings and blueprints, date mainly from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and are mostly for television. These include work for The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand, Directions, and CBS News. Other work is for the U.S. Army Pictoral Center and the ballet Aliss in Wonderland.

    Set photographs date from the same time period and include both stage and television productions. Among them, in box 44, folder 5, are shots of Helen Hayes on the set of Directions in 1961.

    The Art Photographs and Reproductions contain prints and slides of Eaton's paintings.

    The scrapbook, titled The Life, Times, and Art of MacDonald Eaton, holds a brief biography; art and set photographs; Eaton's writings on metaphysics and politics; and clippings.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Raphael Sbarge, 2018.

Processing information

Processed by Matthew Snyder in 2019.

Using the collection

Location

Billy Rose Theatre Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Access restrictions

Inquiries regarding moving image materials in the collection may be directed to the Billy Rose Theatre Division (theatre@nypl.org). Moving image materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.