About the Archive Room
ARCHIVE COMMITTEE: J.E.Ballantyne, Jr - Archivist
Drew Lopez - Asst. Archivist
Amy Banks, Erik Dragos, Lynn Kirkwood
Cassie Smith, Anne Sopher
Work began in the Playhouse Archive Room on Wednesday, September 20, 2017 in preparation for the upcoming 100th Anniversary of the Youngstown Playhouse during the 2023/2024 season. When the door was opened, stuff was literally stacked to the door and, in some cases, higher than the door. It was basically a "junk room" at that point.
The photo at right shows how the room looked after enough cleanup was done to just get in and attempt to do something. Believe it or not, a lot of cleanup had been done before this photo was taken. There was everything from old Christmas decorations (hardly archival stuff) to props from shows. No wonder they couldn't find that teacup!
The only reason for the photo at left was to prove that you could actually get into the room. Before anything substantive could be done, the room had to be cleared. So, that was the first priority --- to remove everything that didn't belong in the room, of which, there was much.
Once it was safe to do something, without fear of being eaten by something living in there, the first order of business was to sort and catalog all Playhouse Playbills. The photo at right shows a small fraction of the thousands of Playbills which we have in our possession. Two and a half years after beginning the process they were all cataloged.
The photo at left shows some of the room progress made by August of 2018, not quite a year after starting. As we have moved forward we have added an archive committee which you saw listed at the top of this page. If you, or anyone you know, may be interested in helping out on the committee please let me know. There is still a mountain of work to do.
Feel free to call me at 330-799-6176, 330-402-9273 or email me via this website by going to the contact page.
This is a more updated look at the Archive Room taken in October of 2020. Still not totally cleaned up but better than it was for a long time. Boxes by filing cabinets contain books such as appear on the far shelves at the far wall. These still need alphabetized and catalogued.
These shelves contain all of the acting scripts which the Playhouse has. Not included here are musical librettos. These have all bee catalogued and are available for check out.
There will be a check out sheet there soon.
These are the 8 large scrapbooks containing Playhouse history. These have also been catalogued. The contents will also be photographed and put on back-up files. They date back to 1949 anf are deteriorating rather rapidly.
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