Correspondence, memoranda, reports, inventories, reorganization plans, operations manuals, briefs, speeches, and administrative forms relating to the background, organization, policies, services, and procedures of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). Included are chars and miscellany dealing with the administrative organization, weekly receipts, attendance records, and information for a House of Representatives committee.

Correspondence; lists of personnel; hiring, transferring, and assigning of employees; biographical information; grievances; employment tests; daily time reports; and first-aid and accident reports. (Much of the material is from the New York, NY, Federal Theatre Photographic Division.)

Correspondence, advertising, mailing lists, audience research, photographic coverage, and promotional material, followed by addressograph plates and newspaper-clippings collages.

Federal Theatre periodicals, reports, bulletins, play lists, songs, ballads, and catalogs, many with date and publication number.

Administrative material including correspondence, speeches, reports, publications, publicity, and blank forms; activities and research studies of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Federal Art Project (FAP), Federal Music Project (FMP), Federal Writers' Project (FWP), Historical Records Survey (HRS); and WPA marionettes, radio, and theater research.

Sixty-five file sets of approximately 169,000 cards in three sizes: 3 by 5 inches, 4 by 6 inches, and 5 by 8 inches. The cards are of different colors, in some cases with colored metal signals, and are housed in original wooden and t\metal card drawers and cabinets. The information on the cards documents titles of plays, books, and magazines; FTP productions by title and region; plays loaned; classical and foreign play titles; bibliographies; requisitions for costumes, sound equipment, etc.; playreading active and inactive files; indexes to playscripts, books, Theatre Arts Monthly, living newspaper picture and text files, and photographic negatives and prints; royalty and non-royalty plays; music and songs for FTP productions; Regional Service Bureau of Los Angeles, Calif.; Talent Bureau casting file; actors' file; research; references to newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, lectures; Hallie Flanagan's lectures and articles; and mailing lists.

Collection of portraits taken in New York, NY, of 275 unemployed theater workers who met the requirements of a board of review who determined their professional ability, experience, and need in order to qualify for work with the Federal Theatre. Some carfare route cards for the city's transportation system are included.

Correspondence, memoranda, reports, lists from the National Service Bureau relating to playwriting, translating, editing, Dramatist Guild, technical experiments, and related play service and research material.

Research studies of theaters and drama of the United States.

Research studies of theater and drama of foreign countries, including material relating to the national theater concept.

Research studies, memoranda, reports on various subjects such as personalities, calendar events of historical interest, children's theater, Chinese theaters in America, dance, folklore, Jewish customs, marionettes, Negro material, vaudeville, youth, etc. Lists of reference books, reviews, living newspaper index, and bibliographies.

Research in construction, costume, dramatic technique, lighting, makeup, miniature theater models, puppetry, selecting casting a play, etc.

Approximately 45,000 reports representing about 25,000 titles of plays, short stories, and books read by the playreading department for possible production as well as for inclusion in play lists.

Collection of blueprints and flat and rolled drawings that include plans for theaters; figure studies; standard details charts illustrating sound and visual effects, special hardware and equipment, scene painting technique, costumes; lighting plans, blueprints for production settings, plans for theater and stage for the New York World's Fair and the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition; and plans for miniature theater models.

Incomplete file of over 100,000 clippings in picture and text form from 17 New York, NY, newspapers and periodicals covering a wide variety of subjects.

General files of material collected by the FTP, including newspaper and magazine reviews and articles about dramas, books, and persons; correspondence, reprints, and reports regarding drama groups, labor groups, contests, marionettes, little theater groups; dramatic technique; bibliographies; published and unpublished studies and resources; short stories; and periodicals dealing with the theater.

Collection comprises over 2,500 play titles covering the classics, musicals, vaudeville scenarios, comedy sketches, living newspaper scripts, plays for children, and marionette scripts, by well-known or established authors as well as plays by unknown authors. Included are some directors' and prompters scripts, actors' sides (sheets, usually a half page, containing lines and cues for a single role), and varying versions of entire scripts or single acts. While most scripts are in English, there are some in French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish. Some duplicate material.