Series 21: Drama, Eudora Welty Collection (Z/0301)

Series 21: Drama.

Dates: ca. 1935; 1948-1949; 1956; 1985; n.d.

Note on Arrangement and Description:

The material originally donated by Welty for this series was initially arranged and described by Suzanne Marrs [The Welty Collection: A Guide to the Eudora Welty Manuscripts and Documents at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi), 1988]. Since most of the material in this series has been re-housed for better preservation and access, her descriptions have been essentially retained, with some amendments and rearrangement to clarify the new locations of works within the series. Marrs’ descriptions, with the requisite changes by the archivist, appear below in regular font. The material added to this series from the gift of Welty’s Estate is described by the archivist below in bold font. To facilitate the location of materials by the researcher, page numbers have been added in brackets on the verso of each piece of the series. These numbers appear with the descriptions below, in brackets.

The works in this series are arranged chronologically, according to their order of creation, where known.

"The Waiting Room." ca. 1935. 22 pieces.
Carbon typescript. pages [1]-21 and a preliminary page describing the set; someone, probably Welty, has labeled this "a farce for a Little Theatre" and dated it as 1935; a few handwritten revisions:

What Year Is This?” n.d. [1948-1949]. 101 pieces.
Carbon typescript; 100 pages and a blue folder; sketches from an unpublished revue by Hildegarde Dolson and Eudora Welty; each author wrote her sketches quite independently of the other. Welty’s sketches are as follows:

What Year Is This?” n.d. [1948-1949]. 102 pieces.
Carbon typescript with a handwritten notation “#2” on the title page. The typescript consists of 100 pages, and was bound in a blue folder of theatrical agent Monica McCall, and enclosed in a Russell and Volkening, Inc., envelope. Monica McCall represented Dolson and Welty in their attempt to get the revue produced theatrically. (See Series 29b, Box 160, the correspondence of Hildegarde Dolson for information on the writing of this revue; the authors’ decisions on which pieces to include; and the reactions of Monica McCall, Diarmuid Russell, Henry Volkening, and Welty’s friends Frank Lyell and Lehman Engel). The envelope was returned by Russell and Volkening to Eudora Welty in 1985, and is labeled “carbon of What Year is This? a revue by Hildegarde Dolson + Eudora Welty 195-.” While the carbon typescript appears identical to the one above, there are occasional strike-throughs and handwritten corrections in pencil.

Skits for a revue.” n.d. 68 pieces.
A folder of skits bearing Welty’s notation: “These are mine, and Hildegarde Dolson wrote an equal number. Nobody wanted to do our show.” Versions of most of these skits appear in the carbon typescripts of “What Year Is This?” described above: for the researcher’s convenience, these skits are arranged in the same order. Bracketed page numbers have been assigned to the pieces within each skit. The last three skits were not included in the agents’ versions above.

"Bye Bye Brevoort." n.d. 15 pieces.
[Note by Marrs, The Welty Collection…, p. 73: “Bye Bye Brevoort” was eventually performed as part of The Littlest Revue in 1955 in New York City and was performed by the Little Theatre in Jackson in 1958. It was published in a limited edition in 1980.”] Carbontypescript; pages 1-15; handwritten note reads, "copy 4"; this sketch was part of the revue written by Hildegarde Dolson and Welty above.

"Bye Bye Brevoort." n.d. 9 pieces.
Carbon typescript originally found in correspondence of Hildegarde Dolson to Welty (Series 29b). Accompanying the typescript is an envelope from The Phoenix Theatre in New York postmarked March 8, 1956, where "Bye Bye Brevoort" was performed (as part of The Littlest Revue) beginning on May 23, 1956. This is a clean copy of a short version of the skit. It appears to have been written later than the version in Folder 5 above; all characters are present, but set descriptions and full stage directions are still lacking.

The Robber Bridegroom.” 1948-49.
Typescript; 85 pages; notes for and scenes from a screenplay; written by John Robinson (who was living in San Francisco and DeLisle, Miss.) and Eudora Welty (who was living in Jackson, Miss.); pages typed in pica seem to have been written by Welty while those typed in elite seem to have been written by Robinson.

"The Robber Bridegroom." 1948-49.
Carbon typescript; 62 pages; screenplay written in conjunction with John Robinson; carbons of some items listed above; these pages are probably by Welty herself; a few handwritten revisions.

Untitled play concerning the Loch Ness monster. n.d. [ca. 1980s] 8 pieces.

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