The Taylor Theatre Playbills collection features programs from Taylor’s stage productions, including Taylor Theatre, musicals, playback theatre, and Taylor’s Touring Company. Some operas are also included.
-
A Lincoln in Illinois
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1995 performance of A Lincoln in Illinois by Robert Sherwood.
-
Lost in Yonkers
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1995 performance of Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon.
Lost in Yonkers tells the story of brothers Jay and Arty who are sent to live in Brooklyn with their relatives while their father goes off to work to pay off the medical bills of their recently deceased mother. Set in 1942, the play follows their new life and their attempt to acquire (through various means) the money their father needs to bring him back.
-
The World of Carl Sandburg
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1995 Advanced Oral Interpretation Class’s performance of The World of Carl Sandburg by Norman Corwin.
-
Big River
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1994 performance of Big River music and lyrics by Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman.
-
Steel Magnolias
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1994 performance of Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling.
Steel Magnolias is the story of a group of women in a small-town, Southern community. It portrays their friendships and how they respond when one of them dies.
-
Tender Lies
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1994 performance of Tender Lies by Nancy Gilsenan.
Tender Lies tells the story of Arlo Gibson and his boarders, and how he encourages and speaks meaning into them through the use of “Tender lies.”
-
Charley’s Aunt
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1993 performance of Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas.
Charley’s Aunt is the story of Lord Fancourt Babberley, an undergraduate persuaded by two of his friends, Jack and Charley, to impersonate Charley’s aunt so they can spend time with they beaus. Their plan is complicated when an elderly fortune hunter tries to woo the fake aunt and Charley’s real aunt appears.
-
Death Trap
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1993 performance of Deathtrap by Ira Levin.
Deathtrap is a one set, five character play with two acts. It follows the story of a struggling playwright and his student and their development of a one set, five character play called Deathtrap which mirrors the events happening in the play being performed.
-
Lest We Forget
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1993 Advanced Oral Interpretation Class’s performance of Lest We Forget.
-
Tales from Rogues' Hollow
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1993 performance of Tales from Rogues’ Hollow by J. Gregory Sager.
Tales from Rogues’ Hollow is the story of travelers Leslie and Norman who get lost and visit an old tavern to ask directions. They discover the tavern full of the locals from Rogues’ Hollow eager to share their stories.
Rogues’ Hollow was a coal mining town in Ohio near where the playwright grew up. It was notorious for large the number of outlaws, and is associated with several ghost stories and bits of folklore today.
-
Cosmographicum
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1992 performance of Cosmographicum by Thom Verratti.
Cosmographicum is the story of a frustrated playwright trying to make sense of the life of 17th-century mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler. It is an original play written by former Taylor student Thom Verratti ’90. He graduated from Taylor’s computer science program.
-
Quilters
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1992 performance of Quilters by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, with music and lyrics by Barbara Damashek.
Quilters is a musical of a mother and her six daughters on the American frontier. Through music and quilts they explore the life of a woman from childhood to death.
-
To Kill A Mockingbird
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1992 performance of To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Christopher Sergel from Harper Lee’s novel of the same name.
To Kill a Mockingbird follows the story of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch and her personal growth as she observes various instances of injustice, racism, and prejudice in her hometown in the Deep South.
-
“…Of Things Unseen”
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1991 Advanced Oral Interpretation Class’s performance of …Of Things Unseen adapted by Oliver Hubbard.
-
Sarcophagus
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1991 performance of Sarcophagus by Vladimir Gubaryev.
Sarcophagus is an exploration of the Chernobyl Disaster, a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat, Ukraine. The play takes place in the Institute of Radiation Safety, near Moscow, immediately following the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.
-
The Matchmaker
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1991 performance of The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder.
Before the world fell in love with "Hello, Dolly!", Thornton Wilder’s uproarious play "The Matchmaker" introduced Ms. Dolly Gallagher Levi: a cunning, crafty, and thoroughly modern woman who knows a good catch when she sees one. When the wealthy Horace Vandergelder hires matchmaker Ms. Levi to find him a wife, Dolly doesn't need to look far to find his perfect mate. While Dolly is “arranging things” for Mr. Vandergelder, the young, hopeless romantics of Yonkers reap the rewards of Dolly’s generosity.
-
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1991 performance of Whose Life is it Anyway? by Brian Clark.
Whose Life is it Anyway? tells the story of Claire Harrison, a woman who is left paralyzed from the head down after a car accident and battles with the doctors to be taken off life support.
-
I Remember Mama
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1990 performance of I Remember Mama by John van Druten.
I Remember Mama is the story of an immigrated Norwegian family living in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century as told by one of the family’s daughters, Katrin.
-
The Little Foxes
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1990 performance of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman.
The Little Foxes tells the story of Regina Giddens, a woman from a small Alabama townwith a desire for wealth and success but unable to take from the family business because only her brothers are considered legal heirs. The play follows her efforts to acquire control of the business and all that it costs her.
-
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1990 performance of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail focuses on the life of Henry David Thoreau as he recounts his life during a night spent in prison for refusing to pay a Poll Tax.
-
The Barretts
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1989 performance of The Barretts by Marjorie Carleton.
The Barretts is based on the romance between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, and her father’s overbearing control over his family and refusal to allow them to marry.
A later production by Taylor Theatre, The Victorians, was produced later that year as a reader’s theatre featuring various Victorian poets and writers including Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
-
The Crucible
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1989 performance of The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
The Crucible is a fictional story of the Salem Witch trials, telling the deterioration of a Massachusetts town when a group of women are accused of practicing witchcraft. Millar wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism.
-
The Foreigner
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1989 performance of The Foreigner by Larry Shue.
The Foreigner is the story of two Englishmen Charlie Baker and Staff Sergeant Froggy who come to stay at a fishing lodge for a weekend. When Froggy makes up a story about Charlie being a foreigner who cannot understand English to help explain his shyness, Charlie is suddenly exposed to a variety of secrets held by the lodge visitors and becomes the focus of some racist members of the community.
-
The Victorians
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1989 performance of The Victorians adapted and arranged by Oliver Hubbard.
The Victorians highlights the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Henry Mayhew, Benjamin Disraeli, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lewis Carrol, J. M. Barrie, and Oscar Wilde.
The play was presented by the Advanced Oral Interpretation Class.
-
Amadeus
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1988 performance of Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.
Amadeus is a fictionalized account of the lives of the composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.