Donald Oenslager collection of Adolphe Appia

The Donald Oenslager Collection of Adolphe Appia contains correspondence, holograph and typescript manuscripts, articles, miscellaneous papers and drawings documenting the life and career of the author of Die Musik und die Inscenierung (1899). The material spans the years 1900 to 1971, with the bulk falling between 1920 and 1926. The papers were collected by Donald Oenslager, who wrote on stage and theater design and taught in the Yale School of Drama for over forty years.

The first section of the collection contains Oenslager's correspondence concerning Appia. Letters between Oenslager and Edmond Appia, distant cousin of Adolphe and representative of the Fondation Adolphe Appia, document the purchase of the typescript carbons of Appia's essays which are found in the second section of the collection. Correspondence between Oenslager and Samuel J. Hume, an author on the theater and dealer in rare books on the subject in Berkeley, California, relates in part to the purchase of Appia manuscripts. A third folder contains correspondence between Oenslager and Walther R. Volbach, a fellow Appia enthusiast and author of Adolphe Appia, Prophet of the Modern Theatre: A Profile.

The second section, Writings, includes over twenty essays by Appia, and an outline of La musique et la mise en scène together with an English translation of that work, based on the German version. Most examples are typescript drafts. The section begins with a list (folder 4) which provides a brief description of most of the writings. All the material in this section except the manuscripts in folders 8, 10, 23, and 24 were bought by Oenslager from the Fondation Adolphe Appia in 1953 and bear the mark of the Fondation. They are third carbons (of six).

The third section,Writings about Appia, contains over a dozen articles by such writers as Carl Niessen, Edmund Stadler, Carl Van Vechten, Jessica Davis Van Wyck, and Walther R. Volbach. Included in this section are two issues of theater magazines dedicated to the memory of Appia.

The fourth section, Miscellaneous Papers, contains materials relating to Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, a Swiss education reformer with whom Appia collaborated, and photographs of Appia.

The fifth section, Drawings, contains three set design drawings for Wagner's Ring Cycle.