SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

April 25, 2022 by Gary Price

Library of Congress Acquires Papers of Award-Winning Playwright Neil Simon

April 25, 2022 by Gary Price

From the Library of Congress:

Neil Simon Image Source: Wikipedia

The Library of Congress has acquired the manuscripts and papers of playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, the most commercially successful American playwright of the 20th century.

The donation will be announced at a special event with actors Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, and Elaine Joyce, actor and Simon’s widow, Monday night at the Library. The public is invited to join the event by livestream starting at 7 p.m. ET on the Library’s YouTube channel.

Broderick and Parker are currently starring in the revival of Simon’s “Plaza Suite” on Broadway. John Benjamin Hickey, director of “Plaza Suite,” will moderate the conversation with Broderick and Parker. Joyce will discuss her donation of Simon’s collection to the national library.

“Neil Simon’s work has left an undeniable mark on American culture and theater,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “The donation of Simon’s papers to our nation’s library is a treasured addition to our holdings that enhances our performing arts collection as one of the best in the world. It also ensures Simon’s legacy is preserved for generations to come.”

The collection includes approximately 7,700 items documenting Simon’s creative process and life. The materials range from hundreds of scripts, notes and outlines for his plays, including handwritten first drafts and multiple drafts of typescripts, documenting the evolution of his shows. It contains papers from Simon’s most celebrated plays, including “Barefoot in the Park,” “The Sunshine Boys,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Lost in Yonkers.”

The donation also includes materials from the 25 screenplays Simon wrote during his career, including “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” “The Heartbreak Kid” and “The

Goodbye Girl,” in addition to several scripts for shows never completed or produced, such as one titled “The Merry Widows,” written for Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg.

Beyond Simon’s typed scripts, materials in the collection include his Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, dozens of personal notebooks, notes and drafts of letters and speeches. In addition, there are photographs, programs, clippings, original posters and signed baseballs (Simon was a noted fan).

A few highlights of the collection include:

  • Dozens of notebooks, full of Simon’s tight scrawl. Some are clearly first drafts written in his study, while others were likely notes scribbled in the back of darkened theaters, including changes, additions and notes for the actors or director, inspired by what he saw on stage during rehearsals.
  • A yellowing first act of “Barefoot in the Park.” Sixty years old now, it wasn’t Simon’s first Broadway show, but it was, perhaps one that marks the beginning of his unequaled track record. It was also the first appearance on Broadway of a then unknown actor, Robert Redford.
  • Perhaps the most surprising discovery in the collection has been over a dozen notepads filled with watercolors, drawings and cartoons by Simon.

Simon began his career in the 1950s writing for radio and television, famously for Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows.” By the end of his career, Simon had 30 new shows open on Broadway, not including revivals. While Simon was known for writing comedies, he took on increasingly serious subjects, including the 1991 play “Lost in Yonkers,” which received the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Simon was nominated for an unprecedented 14 Tony Awards throughout his career and won three, in addition to a special prize for contribution to the theatre. He died in 2018 in New York City.

The papers of Neil Simon join those of other prolific Broadway playwrights held in the Library’s performing arts collections, such as the Arthur Laurents Collection, the screenwriter and playwright whose films include “The Way We Were,” “The Turning Point,” and writer of the librettos for the musicals “West Side Story” and “Gypsy.” The Library also holds the Marvin Hamlisch Collection; Hamlisch and Simon collaborated on the musicals “They’re Playing Our Song” and “The Goodbye Girl.” The papers of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, close friends of Simon’s and his collaborators for the musical “Sweet Charity,” are also housed in the Library’s collection.

The Music Division at the Library of Congress — formally established in 1897 within the Library’s Jefferson Building upon its completion — traces the origin of its collections to the 13 books on music literature and theory in Thomas Jefferson’s library, purchased by Congress in 1815. Today, the division’s collections number close to 25 million items, including the manuscripts and papers of hundreds of composers, lyricists, playwrights, screenwriters, performers, musicians, directors, designers and choreographers, in addition to music and book collections, microforms and copyright deposits.

Source

See Also: Coverage From The NY Times and The Washington Post

Filed under: Awards, Journal Articles, Libraries, National Libraries, News, Video Recordings

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Michigan: Grand Rapids Public Library Finds Rare Set of 'Magic Lantern' Slides Showing Early Tuskegee Institute

From Fox 17 (Grand Rapids): The folks over at the Grand Rapids Public Library made a fascinating discovery while digging through their massive archives back in March 2021, and are ...

Journal Article: "Knowledge Work in Platform Fact-Checking Partnerships"

The article linked below was recently published by the International Journal of Communication. Title Knowledge Work in Platform Fact-Checking Partnerships Authors Valérie Bélair-Gagnon University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA Rebekah Larsen ...

State Library Looks to Install Book Vending Machines Around North Dakota; A Guide to Communicating With Others: Messaging...

A Guide to Communicating With Others: Messaging Apps (via Privacy International) De Gruyter Acquires Mercury Learning and Information Report by the French Committee for Open Science Working Group on Electronic ...

Just Released: Calculators Now Emulated at The Internet Archive (The Calculator Drawer)

From an Internet Archive Blog Post by Jason Scott: It’s time to add another family of emulated older technology to the Internet Archive. The vast majority of platforms within what ...

Journal Article: "Crossref as a Bibliographic Discovery Tool in the Arts and Humanities"

The article linked below was recently published by Quantitative Science Studies. Title Crossref as a Bibliographic Discovery Tool in the Arts and Humanities Authors Ángel Borrego Universitat de Barcelona, Melcior ...

Montana: ImagineIF Trustees Hold Special Meeting on Library Security Concerns; Pennsylvania: Philly’s Free Library is Making Space for...

Colorado: Suspensions Increase at Pikes Peak Library District Under New Security Protocols (via The Gazette) Montana: ImagineIF Trustees Hold Special Meeting on Library Security Concerns (via Daily Inter Mountain) North ...

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

Report: "Australian Authors to Receive Compensation for E-Book Loans for First Time"

From The Sydney Morning Herald: Authors, illustrators, and editors will be compensated for e-book and audiobook library borrowings for the first time, in a move by the federal government to ...

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Publishes Customer Research Agenda

From the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): A draft Customer Research Agenda was open for public review and comment in October 2022. “We’re grateful for the feedback we received ...

Report: "A Watermark for Chatbots Can Expose Text Written by an AI"

From MIT Technology Review: Hidden patterns purposely buried in AI-generated texts could help identify them as such, allowing us to tell whether the words we’re reading are written by a ...

The Accessibility of Federal Information and Data: A Brief Overview of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (Updated...

From the Congressional Research Service: Nearly one in four Americans has a disability, according to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Congress has recognized that in addition to making ...

NY Times: "New York Public Library Acquires Joan Didion’s Papers"

From The NY Times: When [Joan] Didion died in 2021 at age 87, the news set off an outpouring of tributes to a writer who fused penetrating insight and idiosyncratic personal voice, ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.