GENERAL FILE, 1965-1991

The Tom O'Horgan Theatrical Papers, 4.3 cubic feet dating from 1965 to 1991, include a variety of materials saved by O'Horgan from productions in which he, and the actors and designers who worked with him, redefined the dominant modes of American theater. Substantial materials trace O'Horgan's work from the mid-1970s, with a few scattered items from his earlier work. Some significant items are scripts which belonged to Galen McKinley, who served O'Horgan as production stage manager in a number of productions; in these are recorded many of the technical details of O'Horgan's stagings─blocking, lights and music cues. Materials connected with the collaborations of O'Horgan with the Danish writer Elsa Gress are also noteworthy.

There is an immediate problem in arranging the works of a director and dramaturge, especially one whose talents were as various, and whose works were so emphatically for the stage and the moment, as were Tom O'Horgan's. The materials are extremely various: they include scripts with notes, photographs, set designs, administrative records, press clippings, programs, posters, flyers, brochures and other publicity materials, and so forth; and almost all have actually been produced by O'Horgan's colleagues and assistants. The nature of O'Horgan's work emerges not from any single item so much as from the combination of this variety brought together. Therefore, in order to preserve the relations of these items to one another, they have not been sorted according to format or document type. Rather, the groupings of the documents as they were received (gathered together by production) has been retained and rationalized under the series heading DRAMATIC WORKS AND RELATED MATERIALS (2.6 cubic feet), and arranged chronologically. Folder headings, reflecting contents as succinctly and specifically as possible, were assigned in the repository. The term "Dramatic Works" is therefore very loose; the series includes, for example, programs to concerts of musical works staged or written by O'Horgan. In the few instances where materials have been separated (for example, materials connected to collaborations between O'Horgan and Elsa Gress which were found together), provenance information has been recorded in notes in the finding aid.

There are four additional series in the collection. PHOTOGRAPHS (0.5 cubic feet) and VIDEOTAPES (four videotapes in VHS format) comprise separate series. O'Horgan's music manuscripts, which are solely his work and which are readily separable from other materials, have been gathered in the series SCORES. Finally, the GENERAL FILE includes miscellaneous items not connected to any single production, including correspondence from Elsa Gress, materials connected to O'Horgan associates Galen McKinley and Kevin O'Connor, press coverage of O'Horgan, and the like.