Scope and Contents
The papers consist of material created and accumulated by James Lapine in the course of his creative and professional activities as a playwright and director. Material includes scripts, production notes and files, correspondence, writings, printed material, audiovisual material, and photographs documenting Lapine's work on individual plays and productions, and the process of bringing a play or musical to the stage.
Dates
- 1966-2018
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Boxes 47-50, 63, and 80 (audiovisual materials): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Boxes 53, 61, 79, and 81-83 (computer media): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies of electronic files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
The James Lapine Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from George Robert Minkoff Inc. on the Adele Gutman Nathan Theatrical Collection Fund, 2006, and gift of James Lapine, 2009.
June 2018 Acquisition: Purchased from George Robert Minkoff Inc. on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2018.
Arrangement
Organized into three groupings: I. May 2006 Acquisition. II. January 2009 Acquisition. III. June 2018 Acquisition.
Material within this collection has been organized by acquisition reflecting the fact that the collection has been acquired in increments over time. Researchers should note that material within each acquisition overlaps with/or relates to material found in other acquisitions. For instance, scripts and production files can be found in both groupings. In order to locate all relevant material within this collection, researchers will need to consult each acquisition described in the Collection Contents section. Researchers should also note that similar material can be arranged differently in each acquisition, depending on how the material was organized when it was received by the library.
Extent
75.63 Linear Feet (83 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The papers consist of material created and accumulated by James Lapine in the course of his creative and professional activities as a playwright and director. Material includes scripts, production notes and files, correspondence, writings, printed material, audiovisual material, and photographs documenting Lapine's work on individual plays and productions, and the process of bringing a play or musical to the stage.
James Lapine (1949- )
James Lapine is an American playwright and director. He was born in Mansfield, Ohio, studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and worked at the Yale University School of Drama. Lapine collaborated, as writer and director, on several musicals with Stephen Sondheim, including Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Into the Woods (1987), and Passion (1994). His other directorial credits include Falsettos (1992), for which he also wrote the libretto, The Diary of Anne Frank (1997), Golden Child (1998), Der Glockner von Notre Dame (1999), Dirty Blonde (2000), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005). His plays include Table Setting (1978), Twelve Dreams (1978), Luck, Pluck, and Virtue (1994), The Moment When (2000), and Fran's Bed (2005).
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, and competing priorities. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.
This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and in some instances minimal organization. Various acquisitions associated with the collection have not been merged and organized as a whole. Each acquisition is described separately in the contents list below, identified by a unique call number and titled according to month and year of acquisition.
The finding aid for this collection is compiled from individual preliminary lists for each acquisition that were created at or around the time of receipt by the library. The preliminary lists were migrated to comply with current archival descriptive standards and merged into a single file in 2007-2008. As part of the migration, modifications were made to the formatting of individual lists; however, the content of the lists was neither modified nor verified.
As a rule, descriptive information found in the Collection Contents section is drawn in large part from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
Former call numbers: Uncat MSS 856 and Uncat MSS 1079.
- American drama -- 20th Century
- American drama -- 21st century
- Audiocassettes -- United States -- 20th Century
- Audiovisual materials -- United States -- 20th Century
- Born digital -- United States -- 20th Century
- Dramatists, American -- 20th Century
- Dramatists, American -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Dramatists, American -- 21st century
- Dramatists, American -- 21st century -- Archives
- Electronic documents -- United States -- 20th Century
- Lapine, James, 1949-
- Photographs -- United States -- 20th Century
- Sound recordings -- United States -- 20th Century
- Theater -- United States
- Videocassettes -- United States -- 20th Century
- Title
- Guide to the James Lapine Papers
- Author
- by Beinecke Staff and Emily Komornik
- Date
- May 16, 2007, September 2021
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Revision Statements
- 2010-02-10: Transformed with yale.addEadidUrl.xsl. Adds @url with handle for finding aid. Overwrites @url if already present.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.