Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research


The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, the WCFTR holds over three hundred collections from motion picture, television, and theater writers, producers, actors, designers, directors, and production companies. These collections include business records, personal papers, scripts, photographs, promotional graphics, and some twenty thousand films and videotapes of motion picture and television productions.
The WCFTR is regularly visited by researchers from around the world.

History

In 1955 the Wisconsin Historical Society established the Mass Communications History Center to document the importance of journalism, broadcasting, advertising, and public relations in the United States. Recognizing that initiative's value, the University of Wisconsin's Speech and Theater Department formed the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research in 1960. Today the WCFTR is part of the university's Communication Arts Department and is operated in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Film

The film collection contains a variety of American and international cinema with rich holdings of Hollywood films from the 1930s to the 1960s, independent films from the 1960s to the 1980s, post-World War II Soviet films from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Taiwanese films from the late 1970s to the 1990s.
Highlights of the film collection include
Complementing the films are paper records usually organized by the donor's name. Prominent examples include these collections:
The largest of the WCFTR television collections consists of 3500 shows produced by Ziv Television Programs, the most successful producer of action/adventure programming filmed for first run syndication from 1948-1962. The Ziv library includes viewing copies and printing elements for every episode of The Cisco Kid, Boston Blackie, I Led Three Lives, Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Ripcord, Bat Masterson, and thirty one other series. Scripts, production, and promotional materials for these and additional Ziv series can also be examined at the WCFTR.
Television pioneers whose careers are documented at the WCFTR include David Susskind, Fred Coe, Reginald Rose, Alvin Boretz, Paddy Chayefsky, and Loring Mandel, among others. More recent collections include the Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment and Steven Starr collections. Highlights include
Collections have been established by actors such as Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Melvyn Douglas, Kitty Carlisle, Hal Holbrook and playwrights including S. N. Behrman, Moss Hart, Langston Hughes, George S. Kaufman, Walter Kerr, Jean Kerr, Howard Lindsay, Joseph Stein, Russel Crouse, N. Richard Nash, Paul Osborn, and Dale Wasserman.
Collections of composers and lyricists include those of Marc Blitzstein, Sheldon Harnick, and Stephen Sondheim. The WCFTR also houses collections from the costume, set, and lighting designers Dorothy Jeakins, Gilbert Vaughn Hemsley, Jr., and Jean Rosenthal.
The Center also holds the papers of the Playwrights' Company, a production company founded by Maxwell Anderson, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert Sherwood, and S. N. Behrman. The behind-the-scene realities of Broadway theater of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s are documented in collections of producers and directors such as Kermit Bloomgarden, Hillard Elkins, Herman Levin, David Merrick, and Dwight Deere Wiman.

Radio

Although the WCFTR is not primarily an archive of radio, many of its collections were donated by writers, producers, and actors—such as Nat Hiken, Rod Serling, Alvin Boretz, Irna Phillips, and William Spier—who were active in radio production in addition to their involvement with television, motion pictures, or the theater. As a result, the WCFTR holds collections touching on radio production in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. The collections contain some sound recordings, but paper records predominate, including hundreds of scripts for radio productions. Here is a sample of radio programs for which there are scripts in the collections: The Adventures of Sam Spade, The Adventures of Superman, The Aldrich Family, America in the Air, Best Plays, The Beulah Show, The Big Story, Big Town, Cavalcade of America, The Chesterfield Supper Club, The Clock, Dimension X, Dr. Sixgun, Escape, Ford Theatre, The Fred Allen Show, The Grouch Club, Haven of Hope, Hollywood Love Story, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Kay Thompson and Company, Magazine Theater, The Marriage, Modern Tales of Hoffman, My Secret Story, NBC Theatre, NBC University Theatre, Nick Carter—Master Detective, Philip Morris Playhouse, Prudential Family Hour of Stars, Rooftops of New York, The Shadow, Star Spangled Theatre, Suspense, The Theatre Guild on the Air, United Nations Radio, Up for Parole, Woman in Love, and X Minus One, among many others.

Photographs and promotional materials

The WCFTR has millions of still photographs, photographic negatives, posters, pressbooks, playbills, clippings, and scrapbooks, organized into four major groups to provide pictorial documentation of the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures, television broadcasts, and theatrical plays.
A selection of photographs of Broadway and silent film productions and actors, mostly from the 1890s to 1922 can be viewed online at the Wisconsin Historical Images section of the Wisconsin Historical Society website. Color lithographed posters for touring theatrical productions from the 1870s to the 1910s, such as the poster for "Don't Lie to Your Wife" shown above, are also available there.