Columbia University Acquires Patti LuPone Collection

Two-time Tony Award and two-time Olivier Award winner Patti LuPone has donated a portion from her personal archive to Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The collection consists of opening and closing night notes, press clippings, playbills, and assorted personal memorabilia and correspondence, dating from 1968 to the present. Also included are scripts and musical arrangements with the performer's notations from her various stage, film, and television appearances, such as Evita, Les Miserables, War Paint, The Old Neighborhood, State and Main, her Emmy-nominated performance on the Frasier episode "Beware of Greeks," and more. The ongoing collection spans Miss LuPone's five-decade career, which began in Group One of the Juilliard School's Drama Division (which later became The Acting Company), through her many Broadway, West End, and solo performances.

Author of The New York Times bestseller, Patti LuPone: A Memoir, Miss LuPone starred to critical acclaim in Marianne Elliott's new production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical Company in London's West End. For her performance as Joanne, she won her second Olivier Award. The New York Times recently announced that a Broadway revival of Company starring Patti LuPone and Katrina Lenk will open next spring on Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday.

Philip Caggiano, a close friend of Miss LuPone, facilitated the donation, in collaboration with the Rare Book & Manuscript Library's Performing Arts Curator, Jennifer B. Lee.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library houses one of the oldest theater collections in the United States, initiated in 1911 by the nation's first Professor of Dramatic Literature, James Brander Matthews. Matthews was appointed as a faculty member of Columbia College in 1892 and donated his own collection of theatrical memorabilia to the University to support first-hand acquaintance with materials that support the study of theater history. Other notable collections include those of dance pioneer Arthur Mitchell, architect, stage, and screen designer Joseph Urban, director and designer Robert Wilson, performer Gertrude Lawrence, as well as influential playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Samuel and Bella Spewack, William Goldman, Dolores Prida, and Amiri Baraka.

"The addition of Miss LuPone's archive to Columbia's extensive special collections in the performing arts provides a unique and historically significant record of one of the most accomplished and celebrated performers of our time," said Christopher Cronin, Associate University Librarian for Collections at Columbia. "This donation will ensure the collection's preservation for future generations of scholars, researchers, and students of the performing arts."

"The archive of Patti LuPone, who is still very much a part of the working, living theater, adds significantly to the legacy of Brander Matthews," said Lee.