The League of Professional Theatre Women, an advocacy organization dedicated to promoting visibility and increasing opportunities for women in the professional theatre, celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2012. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is pleased to collaborate with the League to celebrate the oral history legacy which, since 1992, documents an outstanding array of women who have contributed to contemporary American theatre.
Fortunately for the public, the Library for the Performing Arts' Theater on Film and Tape Archive is the repository of this extensive documentation of more than 100 women who have participated.
Components of the oral history program include:
- an ongoing series of individual oral histories, videotaped in conjunction with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, before a live audience.
- WOMEN IN THEATRE - Interviews with Notable Women in American Theatre is a television series of 65 interviews, taped over five years, and broadcast on City University Television, with copies on deposit at the TOFT Archive. Both sets of oral histories are available to students, theatre professionals, researchers and interested members of the public. Selected interviews are being streamed on the League website, www.theatrewomen.org.
Celebrating Our Legacy is the culmination of the League of Professional Theatre Women's efforts to draw attention to the remarkable talents theatre women across America have contributed. This is their celebration as well as ours - a wonderful legacy for future generations to emulate.
This exhibition is made possible through the contributions of the Edith Meiser Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Lucille Lortel Foundation.
