Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the College of Visual and Performing Arts records must be obtained from the Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

College of Visual and Performing Arts records, R0011, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Donated by the College of Visual and Performing Arts between 1984 and 2016.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Amy Blake in December 2018. EAD markup completed by Amy Blake in December 2018.

Biographical/Historical note

Beginning with the creation of the Institute of the Arts (IOA) alongside the opening of the Center for the Arts in 1990, the Arts at George Mason University has been growing, eventually creating the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University. It has since been thriving and expanding with many departments including Music, Art and Visual Technology, Dance and Theater. The College of Visual and Performing Arts was established on July 1, 2001 with William F. Reeder serving as the founding dean for 14 years. He was later followed by Rick Davis starting in 2015. As of 2018 there 1,400 active majors within the college with three of the newer programs being Arts Management, Film and Video Studies and Computer Game Design. The college, along with the Center for the Arts and Hylton Performing Arts Center serves more than 300,000 patrons anually as of 2018.

Scope and Contents note

The materials contained in this colection are varied and include: posters, playbills, programs, faculty paperwork and meeting minutes, colour and black and white photographs, negatives, slides, Life Magazines, VHS tapes, CD-Rs, cassette tapes, flyers, tickets, memorandum, invitations to Mathy House, scripts and playbooks.

Series 1: International Arts Festival, dated 1980s-2005, is comprised of paperwork, flyers and memorandum related to George Mason University's International Arts Festival.

Series 2: Theater Department/GMU Players, dated 1962-2011, is comprised of paperwork, flyers, memoranda, playbills and posters related to George Mason University's Theater Department and the GMU/Mason Players.

Series 3: Arts Center Associates (ACA) dated 1980-1999, is comprised of paperwork and flyers related to George Mason University's Arts Center Associates (ACA).

Series 4: "In The Wings," dated 1990s, is issues of the George Mason University magazine, "In The Wings".

Series 5: Center for the Arts/Institute of the Arts, dated 1987-2013, is compromised of paperwork, flyers, memorandum, playbills and degree information related to George Mason University's Center for the Arts.

Series 6: Department of Music, dated 1978-2001, is compromised of paperwork, flyers, degree information, faculty paperwork, playbills and memoranda related to George Mason Univeristy's music department and the faculty of the department.

Series 7: Photographs/Negatives/Slides, dated 1949-2003, is comprised of photographs, negatives and slides related to the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University. There are three damaged photographs within these materials and both color and black and white materials are included.

Series 8: Jane Pearson Papers, dated 1987-2004, is comprised mostly of invitations to Mathy House from the President and his wife and were donated by Jane Pearson.

Series 9: Playbills/Programs, dated 1982-2012, is comprised of playbills and programs from various George Mason University plays, musicals, music productions and events.

Series 10: CD-Rs/AV, dated 1970s-2015, is comprised of AV materials and CD-Rs, the AV materials are VHS tapes and Cassettes containing performances and snippets of recordings.

Series 11: Outside the GMU Theater, dated 1930s-1980, the materials contained in this series are unrelated to George Mason University and are comprised of Life Magazines and programs from old performances from the 1930s and 1940s as well as scrapbooks filled with clippings from programs and playbills of the same era.

Notable people in this collection are Jane Pearson, Colonel Arnald Gabriel, and Doc. Severinsen. John F. Kennedy and Carol Burnett are featured in some of the material unrelated to George Mason Theater.

It is important to note that this collection contains materials that are from George Mason Music, Dance and Theater departments that pre-date the creation of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. CVPA was established in 1990, and several pieces from George Mason date from the 1960s-1980s.

This collection also contains several pieces that are unrelated to the College of Visual and Performing Arts and George Mason University. These pieces are Life Magazines from the 1960s when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, as well as many programs, some in scrapbooks, dating from the 1930s to the 1950s, that feature famous celebrities and works such as "Hello, Dolly!" and Carol Burnett.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged by subject first and then chronologically and alphabetically respectively.

The collection was arranged as such in order to maintain cohesion between the series and subjects within it in a meaningful way in terms of dates. When dates were unreliable, alphabetical organization was used to add order to the materials. A note: The boxes in each series are not always chronological or next to one another in the stacks.

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center holds several other collections related to George Mason Performing Arts such as the Federal Theater Project, the Arena Stage records, and the Theater of the First Amendment

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Color photographs
• Color photography
• Concert posters
• Dance
• George Mason University. Center for Study of Public Choice
• George Mason University. College of Visual and Performing Arts
• Music
• Negatives
• Performing arts
• Performing arts posters
• Photographs
• Photography -- Negatives
• Playscript
• Playwriting
• Slides (Photography)
• Theater
• Theater programs
• Theatrical posters