Did you know that the actor who plays Officer Kevin Atwater in the hit NBC series Chicago P.D. also played Private Driscol in the 2008 Wonsook Kim School of Theatre and Dance production of Bury the Dead? And that actors from The Office and Will & Grace once played harpsichord together on the Westhoff Theatre stage in a 1991 production of Love for Love: A Comedy? You can find all this and more in Illinois State’s institutional repository, ISUReD!
Through a partnership between Milner Library and the School of Theatre and Dance, around 190 programs have been added to the School’s collection on ISUReD. Patrons can now browse production programs that date back to 1957 and feature hundreds of the school’s theatre and dance students, faculty, and staff.
“We often get requests from audience members and former alumni who want copies of the School’s programs,” said April Anderson-Zorn, university archivist. “There was a recent request from an alum who wanted to prove to his family that he had been in a show with a now-famous actor! The programs are a wonderful addition to ISUReD; they help us preserve the physical copies while getting the highly requested programs straight into patron’s hands.”
The new collection contains several famous names, including Sean Hayes, Craig Robinson, Jane Lynch, and LaRoyce Hawkins. When searching ISUReD for the 1991 production program Love for Love: A Comedy, one can find in the cast list Hayes and Robinson listed as playing the harpsichord for the show. Hawkins is listed as playing Private Driscol in the 2008 production of Bury the Dead, the same year Hawkins’s first motion picture film, The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, premiered. If a patron searches for the fall 1980 production The Importance of Being Earnest, you’ll find Deborah L. Ryals and Lynch played Miss Prism in alternating shows. While not all of the programs from the school are included in ISUReD, more will be added. If you are looking for programs not listed, please contact Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield Archives (University Archives), which holds an extensive collection of the School’s production history.
