Digitizing La MaMa's Pushcart Years: A Unique History of the Off-Off-Broadway Movement
Item
Title
Digitizing La MaMa's Pushcart Years: A Unique History of the Off-Off-Broadway Movement
Description
Digitizing La MaMa's Pushcart Years explores the early history of New York City's Off-Off-Broadway movement (1961-1985) as documented in the collections of the Archives of the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Over the course of two years, La MaMa will digitize, preserve, and offer expanded online access to programs, posters, production notes, videos and other materials from our earliest "Pushcart" collection (1961-1985). Once digitized, this one-of-a-kind collection will offer a critical resource for scholars, educators, artists, and students interested in the emergence of modern American theater forms, experimental theatrical practice, and a wide range of other topics in 20th century US cultural history.
Abstract
This project centers on materials in our Pushcart Collection"”flyers, posters, press releases, photographs, correspondence, show programs, videos, and other items documenting the early history of La MaMa and the Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement (1961-985). The bulk of these items were created in the normal course of the theater's business and document productions staged at La MaMa or by affiliated artists and ensembles. An important component of this collection is a group of 251 legacy ½ inch open reel videos that document productions staged between 1972-1980. These materials comprise the most complete audiovisual record of the early Off-Off-Broadway experiments in existence. Due to their obsolescence, these videos"”which document a wide range of pioneering productions, rehearsals, tours, and audiences"”have not been accessible to researchers for several decades.
The long list of theater artists whose work is documented in this collection includes:
Julie Bovasso
Peter Brook
Tisa Chang
Joseph Chaikin
Ping Chong
Billy Crystal
Jackie Curtis
Candy Darling
Robert De Niro
Andre De Shields
Ethyl Eichelberger
Tom Eyen
Harvey Fierstein
Hanay Geigogamah
Philip Glass
Grand Union dancers
John Jesurun
Adrienne Kennedy
H.M. Koutoukas
Wilford Leach
Charles Ludlam
Mabou Mines
Bette Midler
The Native American Theatre Ensemble
Kazuo Ohno
Tom O'Horgan
The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
Philippine Educational Theatre Arts League
Playhouse of the Ridiculous
Max Roach
Andrei Serban
Sam Shepard
Ellen Stewart
Elizabeth Swados
Cecil Taylor
Shuji Terayama
Theatre Laboratoire Vicinal
Third World Institute of Theatre Arts Studies
Tokyo Kid Brothers
Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet
Jeff Weiss
Andy Warhol
Mac Wellman
Ruth Yorck
The long list of theater artists whose work is documented in this collection includes:
Julie Bovasso
Peter Brook
Tisa Chang
Joseph Chaikin
Ping Chong
Billy Crystal
Jackie Curtis
Candy Darling
Robert De Niro
Andre De Shields
Ethyl Eichelberger
Tom Eyen
Harvey Fierstein
Hanay Geigogamah
Philip Glass
Grand Union dancers
John Jesurun
Adrienne Kennedy
H.M. Koutoukas
Wilford Leach
Charles Ludlam
Mabou Mines
Bette Midler
The Native American Theatre Ensemble
Kazuo Ohno
Tom O'Horgan
The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
Philippine Educational Theatre Arts League
Playhouse of the Ridiculous
Max Roach
Andrei Serban
Sam Shepard
Ellen Stewart
Elizabeth Swados
Cecil Taylor
Shuji Terayama
Theatre Laboratoire Vicinal
Third World Institute of Theatre Arts Studies
Tokyo Kid Brothers
Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet
Jeff Weiss
Andy Warhol
Mac Wellman
Ruth Yorck
Program
Date
Temporal Coverage
1961 - 1985
Spatial Coverage
The bulk of materials in this collection document New York-based artists and productions, but a significant subset also document work by artists from more than 70 countries, and US theatre ensembles on tour.
Extent
290 Photographs
Institution
Applicant Unit
Identifier
Primary Contact
Mr. Ozzie Rodriguez
Request
$230,518