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Society Hill Playhouse (Philadelphia, Pa.) Records
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Held at: Temple University Libraries: Special Collections Research Center [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Temple University Libraries: Special Collections Research Center. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Deen Kogan and husband, Jay, launched Society Hill Playhouse in 1959 as Philadelphia's "off-Broadway" theatre for contemporary American and European playwrights. Gradually, it developed a niche in populist comedies, and Nunsense, scheduled for six weeks, ran for ten years. In cooperation with the City of Philadelphia, Society Hill Playhouse also presented major productions city-wide. The Writers Project, beginning in 1962, was dedicated to developing new works. The Philadelphia Youth Theatre, 1970-1983, drew students from public, private, and parochial schools. Street Theatre, 1968-1970, brought plays to all the neighborhoods of Philadelphia using a flatbed truck as the stage. Content was structured for outdoor presentations reaching both children and adults. Playwright and actor Susan Turlish was associated with the theater for several decades.
Society Hill Playhouse was located in the heart of the Society Hill District, housed in the historic former David Garrick Hall. The theater closed on April 1, 2016.
The Society Hill Playhouse Records includes paper and electronic records, photographs, and audiovisual materials that document the theater's productions and programs, including Street Theatre and Philadelphia Youth Theatre. There are varying levels of documentation for the different productions and programs, including a mix of planning records, musical scores, set designs drawings (by Igor Belinkoff), posters, playbills, and other promotional materials, clippings, photographs, and audiovisual recordings of rehearsals and performances, among other records.
The collection is arranged into 10 series as follows:
Series 1: General records, 1938, 1963-2016
Series 2: Financial records, 1965-2015
Series 3: Seasons and productions, 1960-2013
Series 4: Philadelphia Youth Theatre, 1982-1996
Series 5: Photographs and slides, 1960-1997, undated
Series 6: Audiovisual materials, circa 1970s-2000s
Series 7: Posters and set design drawings, 1979-2012, undated
Series 8: Digital materials, 2010-2016
Series 9: Accession 2017-11, 1965-2014
Series 10: Accession 2018-59, 1959-circa 1985
Donated by Society Hill Playhouse, via Deen Kogan, 2016 and 2017; and via Estate of Deen Kogan (Peter Levinson), 2018.
Original audiovisual materials, as well as preservation and duplicating masters, may not be played. Researchers must consult use copies, or if none exist must pay for a use copy. All digital records in this collection have been migrated to a library server, and digital use copies can only be accessed onsite in the SCRC reading room. Please contact the Special Collections Research Center for more information.
Collection has not been arranged; in original order. A box level inventory is available for the paper records. All original boxes have been replaced; only folders in poor condition have been replaced. Collection has not been reviewed for restricted material; restrictions may apply at time of access. Please contact the Special Collections Research Center for more information. Finding aid prepared by Courtney Smerz, Collection Management Archivist in December 2016. Finding updated in June 2017 and in March 2019 to include information about accruals by Courtney Smerz, Collection Management Archivist. Finding Aid updated to include URL to catalog record in May 2018. Digital materials processed and finding aid revised in October 2022 by Jessica M. Lydon, Associate Archivist. Some digital folder names revised for clarity. Special characters removed from filenames. File shortcuts and duplicate files deleted.
- Publisher
- Temple University Libraries: Special Collections Research Center
- Finding Aid Author
- Jessica M. Lydon, Associate Archivist
- Finding Aid Date
- October 2022
- Access Restrictions
-
Collection is open for research. However, the materials have not been completely organized and described for use and have not yet had any preservation actions taken on them. Only a box level inventory is available. There may also be partial restrictions due to third-party privacy issues. Interested patrons must contact the Special Collections Research Center prior to their visit to see if the collection can be made available.
- Use Restrictions
-
The Society Hill Playhouse Records are the physical property of the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries. Intellectual property rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. Researchers are responsible for determining the identity of rights holders and obtaining their permission for publication and for other purposes where stated.
Collection Inventory
2.355 Linear Feet5.5 boxes
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0.625 Linear Feet0.5 box
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5.625 Linear Feet4.5 boxes
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2.5 Linear Feet2 boxes
2 Boxes
10.75 Linear Feet11 boxes + 0.5 map folder
1 Boxes
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1 Folders
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1 Boxes
1 Boxes
6.25 Linear Feet5 boxes
5 Boxes
There are posters and set design drawings for many of the Playhouse's productions.
- 20th Anniversary Season: The Freedom of the City by Brian Friel
- A Gay & Lesbian Musical Revue by Tom Wilson Weinberg
- A Happy Musical from Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill: Happy End
- A New, Unusual Play: Momma, Look at Bang Bang by Frank Freda
- Acting Classes for Your Children (draft)
- Allan Sherman's musical Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!
- An American Season: All Over, Three Men on a Horse, Our Town, Conversations
- Andorra by Max Frisch
- Annetta Lockhart's Pianist
- Archy and Mehitabel, a musical
- Aristophanes' The Birds
- Bent by Martin Sherman
- Branch, a baseball legend by Walt Vail, 2012
- Brian Friel's Volunteers
- Cards of Identity by Nigel Dennis
- Carless Love by John Olive, directed by John Albano
- Christopher Durang's A History of American Film
- Christopher Durang's Laughing Wild
- Coming Next: The Fantasticks
- Commercial Museum in conjunction with Glimpses of Modern Germany
- Dark of the Moon
- Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect up?
- Double Premiere: The Maids by Jean Genet and The Dumbwaiter by Harold Pinter
- Eh? Work is a Four Letter Word
- Enter Solly Gold by Bernard Kops
- Barny and the Circus Children's Matinee
- Galileo, Brecht
- George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion
- God Bless Brendan Behan
- Grease
- Gunter Grass' The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising
- Jean Paul Sartre's The Flies
- Jean-Paul Sartre Festival: The Respectful Prostitute, No Exit
- Jean-Paul Sartre's Nekrassov
- Kennedy's Children (September 21-October 29)
- Kiss of the Spider Woman
- Lafferty's Wake
- Lamppost Reunion
- Le Roi Jones' Dutchman and Arthur Kopt's Chamber Music
- Lear by Edward Bond
- Let Us Entertain You!! Season 2000-2001: Tapestry, the Music of Carol King and Lafferty's Wake
- Little Mary Sunshine
- Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
- Lovers by Dick Perry, Mr. Altschuler's Tree by Tom Oliver
- Lovers Who Pay no Praise or Wages nor Heed my Craft or Art, a play by Sidney Michaels
- Macbeth
- Maeve Binchy's The Half Promised Land, 20th Anniversary Season
- Manny by Walter Vail, The Corner by Frank Freda
- Mary O'Malley's Once a Catholic
- Michael Weller's Loose Ends, 20th Anniversary Season
- Miracle at Graceland
- Mother Courage, Brecht
- Mystery Play, a farce by Jean Claude Van Itallie
- Nunsense
- "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's hung you in the closet and i'm feelin' so sad" by Arthur Kopit
- Peter Weiss' Marat Sade
- Philadelphia Youth Theatre Alternative '75 Presents: Robin Good Hood
- Philadelphia Youth Theatre Alternative '76 Presents: A Western Version of William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors
- Philadelphia Youth Theatre Alternative Program's A Clockwork Orange
- Philadelphia Youth Treater 1978 presents Magical Mystery Tour!!
- [Philadelphia Youth Theater]. Magical Mystery Tour, 1979
- Pump Boys & Dinettes, the Full Service Musical
- Quilters
- Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
- Sartre's No Exit and Albee's The Zoo Story
- School House Rock
- Sex Tips for Modern Girls
- Star Spangled Girl, by Neil Simon
- Steambath by Bruce Jay Friedman
- Subscribe Now: 25th Anniversary Season
- Sylvia Plath's Three Women
- T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral
- Tapestry, the Music of Carole King
- The Bedbug by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- The Bewitched, a play by Peter Barnes
- The Blacks by Jean Genet
- The Bridge Club by Richard Raskind, 2011
- The Changing Room
- The Chinese Wall by Max Frisch
- The Crucible
- The Day Mary Shelley Met Charlotte Bronte or The Monster & Jane Eyre, Vol. 11 by Eduardo Manet
- The Devils by John Whiting, Lock up your Daughters by Lionel Bart, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
- The Fantasticks
- The Fantasticks Try to Remember...
- The Four Little Girls, a theatre piece by Picasso
- The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
- The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht
- The Great White Hope
- The Hostage by Brendan Behan
- The Making of Moo by Nigel Dennis
- The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi arranged by Friedrich Durrenmatt
- The Men of Mah Jongg by Richard Atkins
- The Philadelphia Youth Program: The Magical Mystery Tour
- The Philadelphia Youth Program: Waiting for Godot...on the corner...
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1978/1979
- The Waters of Babylon by John Arden
- Three penny Opera "Mack is Back"
- Three penny Opera: Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Marc Blitzstein
- 'Til Divorce Do Us Part
- Ugo Betti's Crime on Goat Island
- Ulysses in Nighttown by James Joyce, 25th Anniversary Season
- Uncle Vanya
- Viva la Vida
- When You Comin' Back Red Ryder
- Will Stutts as Noel Coward at the Caffe de Paris
- You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
0.125 Linear Feet0.5 box + 6.5 map folders
0.5 Boxes
6.5 Folders
The digital records primarily relate to paper records in Series 5: Photographs and slides and Series 3: Seasons and productions.
Physical Description0.714 Gigabytes556 digital files
1 Digital Folder(s)
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0.4 Linear Feet1 box + 1 map folder
1 Folders
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0.5 Folders
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This series includes a small amount of early planning and administrative records for the theatre, ephemera and printed materials by and about the theatre, clippings, play scripts, and other records dating from 1959 through the mid-1980s. Of note, is Jay and Deen Kogan's original prospectus and investment plan for funding and opening the theatre.
Physical Description6.5 Linear Feet6 boxes + 2 map folders
1 Boxes
1 Boxes
1 Boxes
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2 Folders