Houston Shakespeare Festival 1980 flier

In tandem with the opening of Houston Shakespeare Festival’s 50th season, UH Libraries is pleased to announce the availability of the Houston Shakespeare Festival Collection.

The digital collection is the culmination of a months-long collaboration between Special Collections University Archives and Preservation & Reformatting to collect, preserve, and provide access to Houston Shakespeare Festival (HSF) and School of Theatre and Dance (SoTD) archives. The digital collection includes programs and other materials from HSF, with original materials preserved in UH Libraries Special Collections in the Sidney Berger Papers. Berger, former director of the UH School of Theatre, founded HSF in the summer of 1975.

The project was inspired by professor of acting Jack Young, who requested HSF resources that were preserved in Special Collections. The resources were digitized in Preservation & Reformatting, and University Archives prepared them to be shared online. Soon after, Young donated a remarkable scrapbook and other SoTD materials documenting HSF and the Children’s Theatre, along with audiovisual materials and photos saved in SoTD. Young’s interest in these materials spurred University Archives to make finding aids available online: UH School of Theatre and Dance Records and Houston Shakespeare Festival (a series in the Sidney Berger Papers).

The UH community, scholars and researchers, and the public can now easily find these materials in Special Collections, and many of the items have been digitized and are accessible online, thanks to the work of Preservation & Reformatting.

“We’re excited about the launch of the digital collection,” said Mary Manning, university archivist, “and we eagerly anticipate our continued collaboration in documenting and celebrating SoTD’s history.”