PrintColumbia’s theater devotees—and there are many—are lucky. The school year is packed with performances, from the constant parade of black-box shows to the massive spectacle of the Varsity Show each spring. Theater is a vital part of campus culture, and, for many, a lifestyle choice. For the price of a subway swipe and ten minutes on the 1 train students have access to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center—a resource that would make even the most jaded theater lover salivate. Yet, due to a serious fault in marketing and self-imposed restrictions, few of these students have taken advantage of a foundational component of the American performing arts scene.
Founded in 1970 and endowed in part by famed off-Broadway producer Lucille Lortel, the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive within the NYPL is committed to obtaining film records of nearly every major theater production across the country. According to its website, “TOFT identifies outstanding productions”—mainly, but not exclusively, in New York City—and “creates videotape records with the consent of the theatrical unions and each production’s artistic collaborators.”
This short mission statement, combined with the unremittingly hard work of its curators, has led to the state of the project as it is today: The archive holds film and digital recordings of practically every Broadway and off-Broadway show of the past 40 years, as well as notable regional productions and dialogues among theater personalities. Just as Lortel envisioned, TOFT has become what is indisputably the nation’s greatest resource for recorded theater, ensuring that “today’s performances will be tomorrow’s legacy.”
This legacy, however, has remained largely untapped. TOFT, which ought to be a landmark establishment for artists and scholars throughout the city, has become too well-kept a secret. Though the archive is meant for the general public, graduate and undergraduate students alike use the institution for research purposes. In a phone interview, one of the archive’s receptionists said that, though one must have a “valid academic reason” to make use of its resources, “We have lots of college students come in throughout the year.” While an appointment is necessary to use the archive’s free screening rooms, a phone call and subway ride are a very small price to pay to see such productions as the most notorious flop in Broadway history, “Carrie.”
TOFT is located deep within the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, a large facility that blends seamlessly into its Lincoln Center home. Despite its location in one of Manhattan’s premier performing arts complexes, few passersby take the time to notice—let alone visit—this not-so-little gem of a library.
Inside, however, the atmosphere changes entirely: The glare of the plaza is reduced to a fluorescent monochrome, and the buzz of tourists and theatergoers gives way to the hushed drone typical of a city library. The crowd of New Yorkers within is eclectic—young performing arts students, middle-aged enthusiasts, hipsters, seniors, and academic researchers come for the library’s collection of performing arts-related books and manuscripts, as well as media of all conceivable genres in all imaginable forms.
Staying true to the library’s seemingly secretive theme, getting anywhere near the actual archive is, unsurprisingly, somewhat of an imposing task. First, visitors must check all belongings irrelevant to their research at a vestibule. Next, down a short hallway under the watchful gaze of no fewer than four security cameras, are the two screening rooms themselves. The first hosts TOFT’s digitized collection: Patrons are assigned to one of the room’s 24 viewing stations, where, with the help of an archive librarian, they are free to peruse the majority of modern American theater. The second, more interesting room is cavernous and spare, containing several large pieces of vintage film-editing equipment—iconic metal reels included—as well as a film projector, presumably used to screen the archive’s older videos in their original format.
Sadly, much of the fascinating equipment in this latter room seems to be in a state of disrepair, which is indicative of the current management’s apathy concerning the archive’s public image. Instead of realizing Lortel’s goal, the management seemingly approaches the resource with a self-consciously businesslike attitude.
My own experience with the archive revealed a remarkably labyrinthine bureaucracy underlying the whole operation. Hoping to get a few enthusiastic words from someone in charge, I sent an email to Assistant Director Wendy Norris, who kindly assured me, “We would be pleased to be the focus of an article in The Eye for the Columbia University community.” However, she was only able to provide me with two very unhelpful contacts: the archive director—who could scarcely mask his disinterest in me—and a harried public relations executive, who ultimately forwarded me to a library press representative, who in turn informed me that I needed to speak with the director after all. Days after offering to grant me a brief phone interview, the press representative told me by email, “I cannot guarantee you an interview with him,” but “if you want to do a profile of TOFT, then he is the person you must speak to.” So much for the profile, I suppose.
After my numerous failed attempts to converse with persons of authority, I became acutely aware that I seemed more excited about TOFT than any of its administrators. I certainly hope that my experience was an unusual one. Given the archive’s already low profile among local students and artists, it is critical that its overseers make an effort to reach out to the community and actually lure students—the potential future creators of future archival material—into the building. Frankly, this dark archive within a library wrapped up in corporate policy bears no resemblance to the exciting, progressive world of theater outside. TOFT is, by its very nature, a gateway into the past, but like any other great museum, it must at least attempt to capture the vibrant spirit of the present.
In spite of these faults, TOFT continues to be an invaluable resource for the performing arts community because it is indisputably the greatest project of its type nationwide. Hopefully, the archive’s overseers will soon find a way to reach out to the city’s vibrant theater community. For now, we can rest assured that they will relentlessly comb the country for new additions to the collection. And most importantly, while the upper echelons of TOFT may be impossibly bureaucratic, it is nonetheless easy to make an appointment to use a screening station. So next time you find yourself wistfully daydreaming about that long-defunct Broadway show you saw as a kid, you’ll know exactly where to go to relive the experience.