This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the exhibition Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select, on display in the Edison and Newman Room from May 8 – August 19, 2017. At the time of his death, Professor John M. Ward (the donor of our Ward Collection) was writing a book on Read More
Cawelti
A century of John Milton Ward
Today, John Milton Ward, the donor of the Harvard Theatre Collection’s Ward Collection, would have been 100 years old. Having spent most of my formative Harvard years working with him, I’d like to take a moment to share some thoughts on this auspicious occasion. I began working for John Ward in 2002, so his professor Read More
An Actress Prepares
A promptbook I’ve been working on recently, The Amber Heart, by Alfred Calmour (1857?-1912), is bound in tan leather wrappers with its title stamped in gold on cover and spine. Inside, the covers are decorated with gorgeous red-violet marbled endpapers edged with intricate gold stamping. The book resides in a quarter tan calf and cloth Read More
Climbing that career ladder
Ah, patronage. That special arrangement, in which a composer or author contacts someone in High Places, and asks them to lend their name (and/or their money) to a publication. No less a luminary then Blackadder has struggled with its complexities. Scholars today are particularly interested in those little dedications often found at the head of Read More
Washington the Great, Chief of the Columbians
Alfred the Great drove the invading Danes out of England and coins from his reign dub him “King of the English” in tribute to this victory. In the centuries following his death, he gained a reputation as the monarch who did much to create not only the new nation of England, but also the mythology Read More