Category Archives: Performing arts

Making More of the Skelt and Webb Collection of Toy Theater Theater

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As a collector, Mr. Cotsen was nothing if not adventurous.  One of his most ambitious purchases was the archive of the publishers of juvenile theater, Skelt and Webb, at auction in the early 1990s.  At well over 300 linear feet, Cotsen’s toy theater collection dwarfs every other notable American institutional collection, such as the Arthur Weyhe Collection in the Billy Rose Theater Division in the Performing Arts Division of the New York Public Library or Ohio State University Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute.

Perhaps the curators of those collections have been releasing explosive sighs of relief for years because they dodged the interesting challenge of figuring out what to do.  The Skelt & Webb collection contains much of the contents the shop owned first by the Skelts and then their successors the Webbs when it finally closed in the early twentieth century (it is said that the member of the Webb family who had been its keeper stowed things under the floor boards, up the chimney, and beneath the beds because the house was so small). The play scripts and prints were the devils we knew being on paper. It was the bundles of heavy metal stamps for the foil used to decorating the cut-out characters, copper plates used to print full-length portraits, sheets of grouped characters, scene drops, almost two hundred lithographic stones for reproducing prosceniums and sets, and tools.  Here’s a detail from a copperplate of a backdrop for Shakespeare’s Othello and a machine whose purpose is still to be determined…The first stage of processing the Skelt and Webb archive was the monumental task of sorting the materials, housing, and photographing as many of the objects as possible before sending them to Princeton’s remote storage.  Cotsen’s redoubtable curatorial assistant Aaron Pickett set the course of steering between mounting a full-fledged digitization project and compiling a conventional finding aid..

Without Aaron’s can-do attitude and a flock of student assistants, the collection would be virtually inaccessible.  This month two of England’s leading experts on the toy theater, Alan Powers and David Powell, are able to take a second deeper dive into Skelt and Webb during their tenure this month as Friends of the Princeton University Library’s Research Grant winners.  Their goal to is rethink the history of the English toy theater using the resources of the Skelt & Webb Collection…

Because they will be going through as much as possible while they are in Princeton, I’ve had a chance to do some exploring in corners I didn’t get see years ago, such as the boxes containing drawings.  There are literally hundreds of them…  Here’s a pencil sketch of  great actor Edmund Kean as Shakespeare’s Richard III and a more finished one of a fight shipboard between an English tar and a dastardly pirate wearing a skirt with a ring of skulls and crossbones around the hem.There are marvelous full-length portraits of characters which I’m longing to identify, like this Roman soldier, the deadly damsel with a tambourine and a dagger, and a sprite in fancy fishy-scale tights.  This summer a cadre of us will be working hard to improve the bare bones record for the collection by adding measurements, names of authors, works, and performers, as well as all the foundational information in the Excel spreadsheets Aaron’s team made which at the time couldn’t be inserted. Already I’ve matched up one drawing with its lithographic print captioned “Bob Cousens Pantaloon!”We’re excited at the prospect of making more marvelous material available for  performers, historians of the genre and of illegitimate theater in general, plus collectors and any other enthusiasts on Cotsen’s digital library module.

Cosplay: Making Costumes with Dennison Tissue Paper

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The young lady wearing the stunning paper headdress above might be surprised to learn that elaborate costumes made out of tissue or crepe paper are not a new phenomenon. The dress to the right, from the collection of the FIDM Museum in Los Angeles, is a relic from the 1930s, when the trend was well established.  In fact its popularity increased during the Depression when people had less disposable income.

Around 1892, Dennison Manufacturing, a Massachusetts firm specializing in paper products, began importing crepe tissue paper in a delicious array of colors from England. By 1914 Dennison had established an art department to exploit the products’ uses, launching a stream of  well-illustrated ten cent pamphlets full of detailed instructions for making artificial flowers, home décor like lamp shades, holiday decorations, and fancy costumes for various occasions.  The machine-crinkled paper was surprisingly strong, easy to work with, and much more affordable than woven fabrics, making it possible to create a rather showy ensemble for pennies.  References to tissue paper party dresses begin cropping up in fiction as early as 1900, one example appearing in The Little Colonel’s House Party by the once popular author Annie Fellows Johnson.

Tissue Paper Entertainments. Boston: Dennison Manufacturing Company, [1891]. (Cotsen)

In Dennison’s first pamphlet, Tissue Paper Entertainments, which introduced novelty crepe tissue paper to the American public in 1892, the manufacturer claimed that it was a godsend to any organization trying to mount children’s programs with very limited resources. Dennison did more than serve as the source of raw materials, it acted more like an impresario, dramaturg, and a coach. The preface assured adults that they could succeed in producing pageants if they kept the following tips in mind at all times:

  1. Opportunity for many to take part.
  2. No long speeches.
  3. No special talent required to fill the part, such as dramatic power, a powerful voice, etc.
  4. Such alternation of recitation and singing as may secure a pleasing variety.

The buyer could be confident that the product had tested: the pupils of a poor Mission Sunday School had been invited to make the costumes especially designed for the scripts contained in Dennison’s Tissue Paper Entertainments: two for girls, two for boys. The author(s) were not credited anywhere in the publication. Dennison thoughtfully estimated the size of the cast, recommended the best colors for performance in natural and artificial light, and total cost of the paper.  The locations of Dennison’s metropolitan retail outlets below, for convenience in ordering.  A section on gestures and a blocking for the concert recitation was offered to bolster the confidence of inexperienced directors…War and Peace (no connection to Tolstoy’s novel) for 48 boys divided into 8 groups of 6 was surprisingly easy to costume.  The short boys were to be cast as the minor nations in the group comprised of France, Austria, Germany, Italy, England, Russia, and the United States. “Some attention should be paid to complexion,” instructions ran, “the swarthiest for Italy, the fairest for Russia.”  Different options were given for making the military uniforms.  A scarf of cut paper could be draped over the shoulder, paper basted onto a garment, or a uniform entirely of paper lined with cheesecloth.  Stripes down the side of the trousers, epaulets, chevrons, and stripes on the sleeves could all be made with bright yellow paper.  Appropriate flags could be made of tissue paper copying the designs in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.  The production ended with the entire cast singing for the advent of world peace.

Dennison outdid itself with three-act The Story of Joseph.   All ten brothers of Joseph had lines to learn, but Reuben, Jacob, Judah and Joseph were given multiple speeches.  Joseph brought down the curtain with a solo. His coat of many colors could easily be fashioned from 6 different colors, so he would stand out from his older brothers in drab, dark robes.  Joseph was also the only character with a costume change–purple for his royal robes and a suitable headdress modeled on something in an illustrated Bible.  Scenery was required for acts 2 and 3: an “oriental” tent and a state apartment, both of which could be furnished with crinkled paper hangings and coverings for the throne.

How successful was this venture?  Until someone makes it their business to find out, we have to assume it never generated the revenue as the market for Halloween, which Dennison masterfully saturated.