The Courtlandt Gilmour Collection of Theatre Materials exhibit

By Yashvita Kanuganti, Manuscripts Archives Assistant, Linguistics and HTC Religious Studies ‘26

In the June of 2024, amid a sweltering Athens summer, I found myself with a new project in the Mahn Center’s processing room. My supervisor, Manuscripts Archivist, Greta Suiter, had led me to a few boxes of what looked to be parchment and a stack of old frames atop a rolling cart. I would come to realize that this was the Courtlandt Gilmour Collection of Theatre Materials (MSS 0442).

However, Dr. Gilmour held a life-long interest in theatre. As a student at Harvard, he performed in a production of Henry IV. After graduating, he received local acclaim for his first known professional credit in Night Must Fall, put on by the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society in 1956. His interest in theatre ultimately led him to pursue an MFA in Theatre from Ohio University in 1976, where he received the Anthony G. Trisolini Fellowship. While in Athens, Dr. Gilmour directed the Shakespeare parody MacBett, which was reviewed in The Post. After graduating from OU, Dr. Gilmour would go on to hold positions at the University of Minnesota and Furman University, where he was Associate Professor of Drama Emeritus.

Throughout his career, Dr. Gilmour seems to have collected many theatrical materials including playbills, programs, broadsides, framed posters, and scrapbooks across different locations and time periods. In 2004, Dr. Gilmour donated his theatrical collection to the OHIO Libraries. Twenty years later, I sat down to process a portion of Dr. Gilmour’s donation during that humid June.

As I sorted the collection, I found three main categories: UK materials, American materials, and materials from The Lambs Club. The first two categories featured broadsides and fliers from different theatres or for specific plays, spanning from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s. In the UK materials, I found broadsides from London, Norwich, and Dublin, among so many other places, printed on both paper and silk. In the materials I saw some familiar titles (like Romeo and Juliet) and some unfamiliar (like Love in a Village).

The image on the left shows a paper broadside advertising the plays “Love in a Village” and “The Miser” from 1792.

Amongst the American materials, there were programs from across the U.S., with many from New York City, Chicago, and Boston. I especially enjoyed each advertisement’s detailed illustrations tucked amongst their musical programmes, for community restaurants and family businesses. Besides just a theatrical record, these materials also give us a picture of the cultural moment of the time.

This subject of the third category was an interesting one: The Lambs Club. The Lambs Club, based in New York City, is the oldest professional theatrical organization in the United States, originally composed of 12 founding members in 1874. Their name comes from the original English salon gatherings, The Lambs of London. Currently, the group operates as a private society and for those in the performing arts. The collection has materials from the late 1800s all the way to the late 1900s related to this organization, including programs, dinner menus, and posters. I was also able to take a look at a member’s book from the club filled with profiles and correspondence. Funnily enough, some of the members from the NYC-based society were interested in doing their own archival research and connecting with the founding members of the Lambs of London.

I processed the material and put it into 4 flat boxes, loosely according to these categorizations. There were also a couple of large scrapbooks, containing theatrical newspaper clippings and programs, that I incorporated into the collection’s organization. I found it exciting to see the richness of these theatre traditions and communities, spread across continents and centuries, but connected by a continuous sense of passion.

By the end of the summer, I was able to finish processing the collection and uploaded it to ArchivesSpace. I worked on a finding aid that I am still researching, editing, and adding to. My work with this collection isn’t done either; now, we’re doing the work of showcasing the materials to the OU community.

This spring, I’ve curated a small physical exhibition within the Mahn Center to spotlight a small selection of these materials. While curating these pieces from the collection, I’ve enjoyed learning more about the shows, venues, and organizations that appear among the programs, broadsides, and scrapbooks. The exhibition features materials from American productions, UK productions, and the Lambs Club.

Yashvita Kanuganti talks about the Courtlandt Gilmour collection.

Theatre and Lambs Club materials exhibit on Bloomberg Connects.

In addition, I’ve been using the platform BloombergConnects to create a digital showcase for the collection. These materials are now accessible both in-person and online and are only a snapshot of the wealth the collection has to offer. Below are images of the exhibit set up in the Archives on the 5th floor of Alden Library. It is open to visitors through the rest of the spring semester and by appointment during the summer.