04. Belknap Collection for the Performing Arts

Costume sketches, notes, photographs, and ephemera, belonging to theatre, cinema, television and dance costume designer, John David Ridge.

One of the more prolific of scriptwriters from the "Golden Age" of radio and television drama and comedy, Preston Wood has produced an amazing and varied list of credits in his sixty-year career. The PRESTON WOOD SCRIPT COLLECTION spans every genre from the western to science fiction and includes many of the classic television episodes cited by broadcast historians and baby boomer fans of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Unpublished autobiography, agreements, correspondence, articles, circus tour cards, and circus programs concerning legendary tiger trainer, acrobat, aerialist, ringmaster and clown, Trevor "Tommy" Bale and writer Walter B. Gibson (famed ghostwriter for magicians Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston, and Harry Blackstone, and the creator of one of pulp fiction's most enduring characters, "The Shadow").

Research material gathered by the noted educator, composer, conductor and musicologist, Dr. Robert Strassburg (1915-2003), focusing on the career and life of composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959).

Theatre playbills, primarily for Broadway productions but also for productions off-Broadway and in Florida.

Project files, photographs, artwork, A/V, movie and television props, and other files documenting the life and career of makeup and special effects artist, puppeteer, and actor Tim Lawrence. Tim Lawrence, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, had an extensive career in Hollywood working on numerous projects including Michael Jackson’s THRILLER, BEETLEJUICE, GHOSTBUSTERS 1 and 2, GREMLINS 2, HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS, HOWARD THE DUCK, JURASSIC PARK, and more.

Publications, correspondence, contracts, concert posters, tour itineraries, lyrics, albums, photographs, awards, instruments, clothes, and artifacts belonging to American R&B singer, guitarist, songwriter and music producer, Bo Diddley (Ellas McDaniel), who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll.

The Bob Hope Collection documents, through collected ephemera and artifacts, the life and career of the legendary performer throughout the 20th Century and his 100 years (1903-2003).

Scripts, articles, drafts, correspondence, playbills, artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, audiovisual materials, and other materials related to Steven Abbott’s bibliographic collection on American author, essayist, screenwriter, public intellectual, and socio-political commentator Gore Vidal.

Theatre broadsides for performances in the United States and Great Britain.