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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2008
The University of Houston (UH) Libraries' Special Collections possesses several groups of papers and other items related to theatre and the performing arts, one of which is the Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers. These items were donated to Special Collections in 2000. What follows is a brief biography of Nina Vance and history of the Alley as well as some highlights of items contained within this collection. Nina Vance was the Alley's first artistic director, from 1947 until her death in 1980. Along with Margo Jones and Zelda Fichandler, she helped shape the American regional-theatre movement in the later twentieth century. During her tenure at the Alley she directed 102 plays, produced 245 shows, and was awarded major grants, including significant funding from the Ford Foundation. Despite Vance's achievements in these areas, as well as in establishing the Alley as a respected theatre in the United States and across the world, few works of scholarship exist on her career. This could be partially due to the fact that many primary sources on the Alley Theatre and its founder, such as those found at the UH Libraries' Special Collections, have not been well publicized.
1. Other theatre- and performing-arts-related collections include the José Quintero Collection, the Cheryl Crawford Collection, the Weinberger Performing Arts Program Collection (1947–2001), and the H. David Kaplan Performing Arts Collection (1940–96).
2. Pat Bozeman, Head, Special Collections & Archives, UH, e-mail to author, 24 March 2006.
3. Martha LoMonaco, “Regional/Resident Theatre,” Cambridge History of American Theatre, vol. III: Post-World War II to the 1990s, ed. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 224–48, at 232.
4. Nina Jane Stanley, “Nina Vance: Founder and Artistic Director of Houston's Alley Theatre, 1947–1980” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1990), xiii.
5. Lauren Pelletier, Public Relations Assistant, Alley Theatre, e-mail to author, 26 September 2007.
6. Margo Jones had a great influence on Nina Vance's career, inspiring Vance to found the Alley as well as to use theatre-in-the-round staging. Jerome Lawrence, “Jones, Margo,” in Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, eds., Notable American Women, the Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), 383–5; online at hwwilsonweb.com (accessed 4 June 2006).
7. Although the exact number has been debated throughout the years, Nina Vance spent $2.14 on 214 penny postcards and sent them to potential members to spark interest in the new theatre. The story of these postcards has become quite famous in Alley Theatre lore over the years. In addition to this mailing, a notice was placed in the Houston Post on the morning of the meeting. N[ina]. J[ane]. Stanley, “Vance, Nina Eloise Whittington,” Handbook of Texas Online, www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/VV/fva33.html (accessed 23 March 2006; now at www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/VV/fva33.html); Gerald M. Berkowitz “Vance, Nina Eloise Whittington,” American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 164–6; Robert Morris Treser, “Houston's Alley Theatre” (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1967), 21.
8. Jocko, “Growing, Growing Grown,” The Children's Hour program, Alley Theatre, 8 February 1949, 3, 6.
9. Dale Casey, “The Alley,” Theatre Southwest 11.3 (October 1984): 10–3, at 11.
10. Treser, 61.
11. Additionally, famous critics and playwrights visited the Alley throughout its existence; in the 1950s and 1960s, New York Times critics Brooks Atkinson and Howard Taubman reviewed selected Alley productions. Famous playwrights visited the Alley as well, Tennessee Williams being the first. Paul Zindel was on hand to premiere The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Alan Ayckbourn had the Alley give the American premiere of some of his British comedies, and Arthur Miller was a guest in 1983. Casey, 12; Vincent Landro, “The Mythologizing of American Regional Theatre,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 10.1 (Winter 1998): 76–101, at 77.
12. Treser, 123.
13. Franzen's design for the Alley earned him the National Honor Award of the American Institute of Architects. Anne Hitchcock Holmes, The Alley Theatre: Four Decades in Three Acts (Houston, TX: Alley Theatre/Transco Energy Co., 1986), 2; Treser, 164, 173.
14. Holmes, 45.
15. Stanley, “Vance,” Handbook; Holmes, 51–3.
16. Stanley, “Vance,” Handbook; LoMonaco, 232.
17. Stanley, “Vance,” Handbook.
18. Bob Blase, “History of the Alley Theater” [sic], Sound of Hunting program, Alley Theatre, 18 November 1947, 3.
19. Stanley, “Nina Vance,” xiii.
20. Ibid., 74.
21. Treser, 18.
22. Nina Vance, “Alley Theatre: First Legitimate Playhouse on Main Street, Houston, Texas,” [1947/1948] (photocopy), 4–5, Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers, Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries, University of Houston, Houston [hereinafter cited as Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers].
23. Trotman joined the Alley in 1959 and served in several capacities: as a scene designer, actor, and director. Stanley, “Nina Vance,” 26.
24. Sadly, this proposed book never came to fruition. Ibid., xi, xii.
25. Ibid., 26.
26. Nina Vance, interview by William Trotman, 11 June 1971, transcript, 10–11, Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers (subsequent page citations appear parenthetically in the text); “Jones, Margo,” in Notable American Women.
27. Sidney Holmes was a Houston actor.
28. Nina Vance, “My Trip [Diary of Trip to England May–June of 1958],” 10 June 1958, Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers; Sheridan Morley, “Tutin, Dame Dorothy (1930–2001),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edition of January 2005, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/76145 (accessed 24 October 2007).
29. Vance's diary states that she was in London to see this performance, which may have taken place at the Apollo Theatre. Vance, “My Trip,” 11 July 1958; “Purity and Paganism Set in Conflict,” Times (London), 25 April 1958: 3c.
30. Nina Vance, “Nina Vance's Diary of Her Trip to Russia (Beginning May 12 and ending May 29, 1977),” 1, Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers.
31. Stanley, “Vance,” Handbook; Holmes, 51–3.
