By Michelle Hines , University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted: 5-23-07
Dr. Robert Hansen.
GREENSBORO, NC – Forty years ago Dr. Robert Hansen began collecting bits of paper. His collection grew steadily, and before he knew it he had almost 10,000 “bits.”
Now those “bits,” which represent the history of the performing arts from the 18th to 21st centuries, are valued at about $125,000. Hansen, a theatre professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, has given them to Jackson Library.
“There are posters, programs, original scene and costume designs, contracts, autographs, photos, engravings—virtually anything associated with the performing arts that survives the performance,” Hansen said.
Faculty, students and other patrons will be able to access the memorabilia through the library’s Special Collections archive.
There are letters and autographs from 18th-century stage great David Garrick; actor Edwin Booth, brother of the notorious John Wilkes Booth; Ethel Barrymore; Alex Guiness; Laurence Olivier; Henry Fonda; Thornton Wilder; Eugene O’Neill; August Wilson and Tennessee Williams.
“Some items are associated with great individuals, some have significance in terms of great moments of theatre history,” Hansen said, “but they’re all a sort of energy preserved posthumously. These are images of past performances before electronic media, the only records we have of this very important human activity which has come to inspire and delight us through the ages. The only things left when performances are over are programs, plans and memories captured in letters.”
The collection includes about 5,000 programs, including programs for the original production of Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” and Stephen Sondheim’s dark musical “Sweeney Todd.” Film items include an autographed photo of silent star Mary Pickford and programs for films starring Pickford and Charlie Chaplin.
Hansen, who refers to his collecting as a “noble act of rescuing old paper,” said the initial decision to donate his treasures was difficult, “but after that it was kind of a release. Collecting was a great hobby for me, until one day I woke up and thought, I have all this stuff, what am I going to do with it?”
Although the parting was sweet sorrow, Hansen reminds himself that he can still visit his collection at the library whenever he gets the yen.
Part of the beauty of donating the material to Special Collections, he said, is that others can access it and add to it.
“Plus there’s a motivation to use it in classes, have students study it and look at it. It’s a way of bringing the past alive.”
