Library of Congress Topics in Preservation Series (TOPS)

The Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress announces
the 63rd presentation in the Topics in Preservation Series (TOPS):

"The Federal Theatre Project: Uncovering Changes in Playscripts of
    Popular Performances"
Pickford Theater, Madison Building, 3rd floor
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington DC 20540
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
2-3:30 pm

Amy Brady will discuss the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), America's
first and only nationally subsidized theater, and how hyperspectral
imaging helped to elucidate the history of some of the FTP's most
popular performances. With the support of a CLIR/Mellon fellowship,
Amy Brady, a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst, spent nine months researching in the FTP archive at the
Library of Congress. This archive houses more than 500,000 pieces of
Federal Theatre-related ephemera, including playscripts that were
marked up by directors and other FTP personnel. These markings have
faded over time or were intentionally erased, but some of them were
recovered via the Library's hyperspectral imaging unit housed in the
Preservation and Testing Division. The recovery of these markings
allows Amy and future scholars to learn more about the scripts'
evolution from creation to final performance.

Amy Brady is an instructor at Kean University and a doctoral student
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is completing a
dissertation that combines textual analyses and performance
reconstruction of plays performed for and written by the Federal
Theatre Project. Much of her dissertation data was gathered at the
Library of Congress thanks to a generous CLIR/Library of Congress
Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources.

Webcast opportunity:  If you would like to participate via webcast,
send email to mwilson<-at->loc<.>gov no less than three days in advance of
the event. Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance
at (202) 707-1076 or ADA<-at->loc<.>gov.

The Topics in Preservation Series lectures are free and open to the
public. The next TOPS lecture, on November 19, 2012, will feature
Father Justin, the librarian of St. Catherine's Monastery, and
Michael B. Toth, the Sinai Palimpsest Project Program Manager,
discussing how advanced spectral imaging is revealing ancient texts
in the remote library of a Greek Orthodox monastery in Egypt's Sinai
desert. For further details and updated information about the
series, please visit

        <URL:http://www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/>

Fenella G. France PhD, MBA, FAIC
Chief, Preservation Research and Testing Division
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC, 20540-4560
202-707-5525
Fax: 202-707-1525


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 26:22
                 Distributed: Monday, October 22, 2012
                       Message Id: cdl-26-22-006
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