Scope and Contents
The collection consists of general files, correspondence, subject files, publicity files, scripts, journals, writings, personal papers, photographs, audiovisual material, and born digital materials relating to The Living Theatre, its founders, Julian Beck and Judith Malina, and its co-director, Hanon Reznikov. The collection documents the adminstration of the theater, its stage productions, and its relationship to other avant-garde and radical cultural and political movements in the United States and Europe during the time period from the 1960s to the present. Also included are extensive diaries and journals of Judith Malina and Julian Beck, as well as their personal papers and writings. The photographs and audio-visual material largely document specific productions.
Dates
- 1815-2012
- Majority of material found within circa 1947-2012
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
In-process material. This collection is closed to researchers until processing is completed. For further information, consult Access Services.
Uncat MSS 1006 Boxes 268-285, 297-298 (audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Uncat MSS 1309 Boxes 211-216 (audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Uncat MSS 1309 Boxes 217-221 (digital media): Restricted fragile material. Access copies of digital files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
The Living Theatre Records is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Morgan & Rosenthal on the Alfred Z. Baker, Jr. Fund and Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2008, and from Boo-Hooray on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund and the Adele Gutman Nathan Theatrical Collection Fund, 2013.
Arrangement
Organized into two groupings: March 2008 Acquisition; and August 2013 Acquisition.
Extent
529.85 Linear Feet ((564 boxes) + 3 rolls, 6 broadside, and 4 art)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The collection consists of general files, correspondence, subject files, publicity files, scripts, journals, writings, personal papers, photographs, audiovisual material, and born digital materials relating to The Living Theatre, its founders, Julian Beck and Judith Malina, and its co-director, Hanon Reznikov. The collection documents the adminstration of the theater, its stage productions, and its relationship to other avant-garde and radical cultural and political movements in the United States and Europe during the time period from the 1960s to the present. Also included are extensive diaries and journals of Judith Malina and Julian Beck, as well as their personal papers and writings. The photographs and audio-visual material largely document specific productions.
The Living Theatre
Founded in 1947 as an imaginative alternative to the commercial theater by Judith Malina, the German-born student of Erwin Piscator, and Julian Beck, an abstract expressionist painter of the New York School, The Living Theatre has staged nearly a hundred productions performed in eight languages in 28 countries on five continents - a unique body of work that has influenced theater the world over.
During the 1950's and early 1960's in New York, The Living Theatre pioneered the unconventional staging of poetic drama - the plays of American writers like Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Paul Goodman, Kenneth Rexroth and John Ashbery, as well as European writers rarely produced in America, including Cocteau, Lorca, Brecht and Pirandello. Best remembered among these productions, which marked the start of the Off-Broadway movement, were Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Tonight We Improvise, Many Loves, The Connection and The Brig.
In the mid-1960's, the company began a new life as a nomadic touring ensemble. In Europe, they evolved into a collective, living and working together toward the creation of a new form of nonfictional acting based on the actor's political and physical commitment to using the theater as a medium for furthering social change. The landmark achievements of this period include Mysteries and Smaller Pieces, Antigone, Frankenstein and Paradise Now.
In the 1970's, The Living Theatre began to create The Legacy of Cain, a cycle of plays for non-traditional venues. From the prisons of Brazil to the gates of the Pittsburgh steel mills, and from the slums of Palermo to the schools of New York City, the company offered these plays, which include Six Public Acts, The Money Tower, Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism, Turning the Earth and the Strike Support Oratorium free of charge to the broadest of all possible audiences.
The 1980's saw the group return to the theater, where they developed new participatory techniques that enable the audience to first rehearse with the company and then join them on stage as fellow performers. These plays include Prometheus at the Winter Palace, The Yellow Methuselah and The Archaeology of Sleep.
Following the death of Julian Beck in 1985, co-founder Judith Malina and the company’s new director, veteran Hanon Reznikov, who first encountered The Living Theatre while a student at Yale in 1968, opened a new performing space in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, producing a steady stream of innovative works including The Tablets, I and I, The Body of God, Humanity, Rules of Civility, Waste, Echoes of Justice, and The Zero Method. After the closing of the Third Street space in 1993, the company went on to create Anarchia, Utopia and Capital Changes in other New York City venues.
In 1999, with funds from the European Union, they renovated a 1650 Palazzo Spinola in Rocchetta Ligure, Italy and reopened it as the Centro Living Europa, a residence and working space for the company’s European programs. There they created Resistenza, a dramatization of the local inhabitants’ historical resistance to the German occupation of 1943-45. In recent years, the company has also been performing Resist Now!, a play for anti-globalization demonstrations both in Europe and the U.S. A month-long collaboration with local theater artists in Lebanon in 2001 resulted in the creation of a site-specific play about the abuse of political detainees in the notorious former prison at Khiam.
The Living Theatre has opened a new theatre at 21 Clinton Street, presenting The Brig. They continue also to present NO SIR!, a play for the street against military recruitment.
Historical note comes from The Living Theatre website: http://www.livingtheatre.org/history.html.
Processing Information
This collection is closed during processing and a new finding aid will be published when processing is completed.
- Audiovisual materials
- Beck, Julian, 1925-1985
- Born digital
- Experimental theater -- United States -- 20th Century
- Experimental theater -- United States -- 21st century
- Living Theatre (New York, N.Y.)
- Malina, Judith, 1926-2015
- Reznikov, Hanon
- Theater -- New York (State) -- New York
- Theater -- United States -- 20th century
- Theater -- United States -- 21st century
- Title
- Guide to the Living Theatre Records
- Author
- by Leigh Golden and Jennifer Meehan
- Date
- 2008
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.