Sheldon Abend American Theater Collection, 1874-1968

Summary

Creator:

Abend, Sheldon (1929-2003)

Extent:

47 boxes

Language:

English

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains scripts. This includes but is not limited to, play descriptions, selected scenes, and notes and comments from works such as Grounds for Divorce, Robin Hood's Party, and the Broadway play The Last Warning. Additionally, this collection includes blueprints on how scenes were developed, corrected, and improved based on comments and concerns from various actors during his career from the early 1920s until his death in 2003.

Biographical / historical:

Sheldon Abend was born on 13 June 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. Sheldon Abend was an executive producer who also served as an estate representative for such literary luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and Tennessee Williams. He made a name for himself by winning an intense copyright battle with MCA. A New York native who later fought in the ring and worked as a tugboat coal-stoker, Abend went to work for the American Play Company in 1957 with little education and an over-abundance of initiative. He rose through the ranks to own the organization in three short years, and after establishing the Author's Research Company, served as a literary consultant and rights negotiator for David O. Selznick, among many others. Gaining notoriety for taking on MCA, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jimmy Stewart in 1983 to establish what has come to be known as the "Abend Rule," the tenacious negotiator went to the Supreme Court to clarify copyright law for instances in which the author dies during the copyright's term. In addition, he was known for Original Sin (2001), Why Would I Lie? (1980) and Rear Window (1998). He died on 24 August 2003 in New York City, New York, USA.

Acquisition information:

Donation

Sheldon Abend

Arrangement:

Folders are organized in alphabetical order by author's name.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Related

Related material:

Related material to the collection may be found in the following repository.

University of Miami Libraries, Special Collections.

American Play Company Collection

https://atom.library.miami.edu/asm0006

Other descriptive data:

Language from the original item is typically transcribed directly and without redaction, especially for titles. Items depicting offensive, racist, and/or stereotypical imagery or language are presented in their original state as a historical record for scholarship and research.

Blackface minstrelsy is a popular entertainment form, originating in the United States in the mid-19th century and remaining in American life through the 20th century. The form is based around stereotypical and racist portrayals of African Americans, including mocking dialect, parodic lyrics, and the application of Black face paint; all designed to portray African Americans as othered subjects of humor and disrespect. Blackface was a dominant form for theatrical and musical performances for decades, both on stage and in private homes. The Sheldon Abend Theater Collection includes Blackface minstrelsy materials for the benefit of scholars seeking to better understand the role racial performance has had in shaping Western culture.

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Motion picture producers and directors.
Playbills.
Theater Playbills and Programs Collection (Library of Congress)

Places:

Minstrel shows.

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Rights: In copyright. Standardized rights statement:

https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/

Special Collections & University Archives provides copies of materials in our collections for private study, scholarship, or research. Patrons are responsible for determining the proper copyright holder and securing permission to publish, quote, broadcast, exhibit, or perform that work. FIU Special Collections will provide all available information about the copyright holder of materials found in our collections.

For more information please visit: https://library.fiu.edu/find/copyright/general

Location of this collection:

FIU Special Collections

Florida International University

11200 SW 8th Street

Miami

FL

33199

USA

Contact:

https://specialcollections.fiu.edu/