Do you love DC-area theater, but missed seeing one of this season’s performances? Are you a theater professional and need to review the blocking or set design of a particular show? Or perhaps you are student or teacher looking to enhance your class studies by viewing one of the classic plays of our times?
The Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive (WAPAVA) has preserved and documented 50 productions from small and large theaters in the Washington, DC area this theater season and over 850 since 1993 in the James J. Taylor Collection. The Archive represents a cross-section of Washington-area theaters, from large and established (Shakespeare Theatre, Folger Theatre, Ford’s Theatre) to small and emerging (1st Stage, Creative Cauldron, Forum Theatre, Spooky Action). The James J. Taylor Collection is available and catalogued at the University of Maryland’s Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library and at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC.
Visit WAPAVA’s website to search our database of recordings in the Archive, and to plan your visit to one of the libraries to see a recorded show.
Here’s our list of archives for the 2015-16 season:
1st Stage Floyd Collins
American Century Theater
Twelve Angry Men
Faction of Fools
Our Town
Folger Theatre
Pericles
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
District Merchants
Ford’s Theatre Society
The Guard (Helen Hayes Award Nomination)
A Christmas Carol
The Glass Menagerie
110 in the Shade
Imagination Stage
Sinbad: The Untold Tale
The BFG
Mosaic
When January Feels Like Summer
Quotidian Theatre Company
Maytag Virgin
Rep Stage
The Fantasticks
A Lie of the Mind
Two by J.M.Barrie
Venus in Fur
The Whale
An Almost Holy Picture
Speech & Debate
The Temperamentals
God’s Ear
Travels with My Aunt
Circle Mirror Transformation
Sunset Baby
The Piano Teacher
Boeing,Boeing
Wittenberg
RoundHouse Theatre
Ironbound (Helen Hayes Award & Nomination)
Shakespeare Theatre Company
Salome (7 Helen Hayes Awards & 3 Nominations)
Kiss Me, Kate (3 Helen Hayes Awards & 4 Nominations)
The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound
Othello
The Taming of the Shrew
Tartuffe
Spooky Action Theater
Collaborators
Theatre Alliance
Black Nativity (3 Helen Hayes Awards & 5 Nominations)
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the
rainbow is enuf
Word Becomes Flesh
Occupied Territories
Theater J
Stars of David
Sons of the Prophet
The Sisters Rosenweig
The Edge of the Universe Players
Entertaining Mr. Sloane
University of Maryland School of Theater, Dance and
Performance Studies
Intimate Apparel
Tartuffe
Washington Stage Guild
It’s A Wonderful Life (Helen Hayes Award Nomination)
2016 Helen Hayes Awards
WAPAVA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, incorporated in Washington, DC. WAPAVA is one of only three major continuous Actors’ Equity-approved video performance archives in the United States (others include Theater on Film and Tape in New York and Chicago Film Archive of Performance in Chicago). WAPAVA serves as a resource for theater professionals and scholars; students and educational programs; specialized researchers in local and national theater history; and the general public.
Productions are chosen for their historical and educational value. Premieres, unique events, community interest, and contributions of particular value by performers, directors, and/or designers are given special consideration. The WAPAVA Board of Directors decides what to record, taking into account recommendations from the WAPAVA Advisory Committee, reviews, and available financing.
This article is by Carole Bernard, Executive Director of WAPAVA.
