Blog Posts by Subject: Theatre

Including genealogy, the performing arts, LGBT studies and more.

Discover the life of the first "America's Sweetheart," a worldwide star and one of the first female innovators in Hollywood.

Short Plays to Nourish the Mind and Soul is back for its third season of dramatic monthly readings at the George Bruce Library.

Sam Shepard, the great Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who died July 27 at age 73, was a remarkably prolific writer over the past half-century, and he still found time to act in more than 60 movies and TV shows.

The New Federal Theatre was founded in 1970. From its inception to today, the Theatre is as an iconic performance space for many widely recognized African-American actors, directors, and playwrights.

Exploring the Library for the Performing Arts' Cinema Series 40 Years of London and New York Theatre on Film.

Volunteer interviewers from the NYPL Community Oral History Project went on tour this month to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park to talk to people in line for The Public Theater’s annual Free Shakespeare in the Park. As regulars will tell you, waiting in line at the Delacorte is a truly unique city experience.

Professional television, film, and theatrical costume designer Aileen Abercrombie designed, wrote, and edited an e-book guide to the library’s costume collections inspired by Olive’s work. The guide is freely downloadable in PDF form.

For this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present John Lithgow and James Shapiro discussing Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and Getting Hooked on Shakespeare.

It is too soon to tell if the next Broadway season will boast the same number of projects that star Asian-Americans, Latinos, African-Americans, deaf and disabled artists that it did this year, but it looks promising. Here’s a look at upcoming projects that are scheduled to open soon.

Photos of Lupino Lane in Only Me, now on display on the third floor of the Library for the Performing Arts.

Shaun Neblett, aka MC SNEB, is a playwright, educator, and founder of Changing Perceptions Theater.

The Library for the Performing Arts has several hundred of these promptbooks, and staff are working to make them more accessible to researchers.

When Shakespeare wrote “All the World’s a Stage,” he probably wasn’t thinking that his words would someday be performed in an occupied city by an invading army. Nevertheless, during the American Revolution theater seemed to spring up in the oddest of places, often in productions acted by soldiers.

Doug Reside from NYPL’s Library for the Performing Arts joins Gwen and Frank to talk about the Bard and the Great White Way. He even raps a teeny tiny bit from Hamilton.

In keeping with its motto of “Shakespeare for Everyone,” the Instant Shakespeare Company will be organizing readings at library branches this spring.

A clue to a mysterious performance that at the time may have been "the finest spectacle that has ever been presented on the American stage."

Two prime examples of actors and actor/managers who based their later careers on performing Sir John Falstaff.

We asked thirty staff members to select and read their favorite Shakespeare speech, monologue, or sonnet. We will release one each day throughout the month of April.