Vol. 38, No. 18

1-2-2007
By: Julia Harris

There's no business like show (print) business

Nena Couch, head curator of the Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, is like a kid in a candy shop. She’s got a new collection to add to her trove of performing arts resource materials, and she can’t contain her excitement.

She hovers, beaming over a scarred wooden table loaded with treasures from the Curtiss Show Print Collection, which was donated to the institute by Nyle and Helen Stateler of Continental, Ohio. The collection contains materials printed in the early to mid-20th century, including posters, window cards, tickets and heralds — two-sided handouts promoting upcoming events — for traveling shows, magician acts and other popular entertainment. Also included in the collection are many of the printing blocks and work orders detailing the specifications for each job.

It’s almost an embarrassment of riches, says Couch, who added she only knows of one other historic show print collection, the Hash Show Print, which is part of the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn.

She traces with her finger the rubbery surface of one large block that advertises an upcoming show by magician Mysterious Brown. “I love this block because it’s so large and it’s got lots of different fonts that have been carved out,” she says. “It’s a fairly complex block.”

It’s one of more than a thousand individual print blocks, ranging in size from roughly 1-inch squares to heavy boards the size of an extra-large pizza box. The blocks are made of carved wood, carved linoleum on wood and metal plates, which were used to print photographic material.

Tom Rieland, WOSU general manager, encountered the collection while working with an independent filmmaker on a documentary about small-town America in the last century. The film, “Continental, Ohio,” originally aired in 2004 and chronicles the life and work of Nyle Stateler, who went to work in a print shop in 1941 and never left, except for a stint as an infantryman in World War II.

Stateler, now in his 80s, says he started out as a “flunkey,” cleaning presses and setting type on a linotype machine. He describes the work, especially that done in the first part of his career, as extremely hard.

“We had to do everything by hand,” he says. “We’d get same-day orders for 100,000 heralds, which had to be hand-fed one at a time and then turned over and run through again.”

He donated the collection to Ohio State because he thinks it provides valuable lessons on how hard people had to work and the kinds of printing techniques they used, techniques now mostly forgotten.

“The first time I saw Nyle, he was standing on top of the largest printing press, working with the inks,” Couch recalls. “They still print the weekly paper, they do a lot of printing for the grocery store and during election season they print yard signs. They’re still very busy.”

Stateler stumbled upon the collection while doing some cleaning — the materials had been stashed under a stairway since 1942, along with a jug full of dandelion wine from 1932. He had some pieces appraised and was surprised to learn how valuable they were.

“Some of this stuff is now worth $500, $1,000 a piece,” he says. “I guess it’s really scarce.”

Stateler, who says he’ll probably work until they have to carry him out, decided to give most of the collection to Ohio State in appreciation for the work done by WOSU.

The appreciation is entirely mutual, says Couch. She looks forward to making the Curtiss collection available to scholars from a variety of disciplines and specialties, including graphic arts, American history and race issues. She has plans to create a digital exhibit of the blocks and prints, as well as archival prints from each block in the collection. She also hopes to put together a publication about the blocks.

“These materials are interesting as a means of conveying information about that period, and they’re certainly interesting from the point of view of the performing arts and entertainment, not only in Ohio but the whole eastern part of the country,” she says.

People interested in the film that started it all may contact WOSU at (800) 7-VOICES. The DVD is $19.95.

Quick facts

The Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute is one of the university library system’s special collections. It specializes in performing arts collections and materials that are not generally available commercially.

The institute, named to honor playwrights Lawrence and Lee, primarily collects materials that document professional work in the performing arts. It serves as an archive for performers, designers, theatre companies and others. Some of the materials it collects include professional and personal correspondence, scrapbooks, videos and sound recordings, creative works and personnel or administrative records.

Located at 1430 Lincoln Tower, the institute is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. during the school year and by appointment during breaks. For more info, call 292-6614 or visit library.osu.edu/sites/tri/index.php.

onCampus Home