Help Us Preserve the History of Off Off-Broadway!
We recently announced a matching grant in the amount of $51,480.00 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for our project, “Preserving Off Off-Broadway: Designing Improved Climate Control for the La MaMa Archive.” The grant will support strategic upgrades to the Archive’s physical space. Without the proper facilities and environmental controls, La MaMa’s treasured archival materials documenting 60+ years of theatre history, are at risk of deterioration.
As we work towards this goal, we thought it would be a great opportunity to highlight some of the remarkable records and unique artifacts held by the Archive, and explain how your donation will aid in their long-term preservation!
The La MaMa Archives cares for thousands and thousands of paper records. We house programs, posters, letters, ticket stubs, postcards, theatrical reviews, flyers, drawings, technical renderings, shipping manifests and so much more from over half a century of productions! Yet, out of all of these interesting and important papers, this one stands out.
Catalog record: https://catalog.lamama.org/Detail/objects/6792
This small note, measuring just 3 inches by 5 inches, is tangible documentation heralding the more than 60 years of transformative art to follow. A few brief transactional words jotted down on a notepad, ripped out, and handed over began what has become a venerated institution.
While this historically important scrap of paper is stored in a mylar sleeve and is kept away from the light, it is still subject to damage. As you can see from the discoloration, time has taken its toll. Commercially produced paper contains lignin, a protein found in wood, which generates acid as it deteriorates. The acidification then causes yellowing and embrittling. Higher quality paper generally contains less of the damaging protein, but mass produced paper contains more. Particularly newsprint, notepaper, and copy paper; types of paper which the archive has a lot of!
One of the greatest environmental dangers to paper records, apart from fire and flood, is rapidly changing temperature and humidity. This speeds up the degradation. Paper acidification can be slowed with environmental controls and by rehousing the records – in mylar, as we have done here, or in acid-free, archival quality folders, which we also do. While we do all we can to preserve these documents, we need your help to do more!
Your donation will contribute to the long-term preservation of our paper artifacts by providing the stable, climate-controlled environment they need to last another 60 years and beyond.
La MaMa needs the support of our community to meet our federal matching requirement of $51,480, as part of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Donations to the project will directly translate into much-needed physical improvements to our space and protect the work of thousands of groundbreaking artists for future generations.
Cataloging La MaMa's Pushcart Years and Beyond 