East Carolina University archivists are in the middle of a yearlong project to catalogue everything from film reels to financial statements from more than 600 outdoor theaters across the nation.
ECU’s Special Collections Division at Joyner Library is processing the records of the Institute of Outdoor Theatre with a $56,290 grant from the National Archives and Records Administration. The funds were matched by ECU, Joyner Library and the Institute to provide a total of $119,500 for the project, said Dr. Michael C. Hardy, director of the Institute of Outdoor Theatre at ECU, said.
A comprehensive online finding aid is being created to provide worldwide access to the inventory of the collection which includes photographs, video and audio recordings, publicity materials, audience surveys, blueprints, research and other items from hundreds of outdoor theaters dating to the 1920s.
“The materials will provide unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes experienced by outdoor theaters and the communities in which they operate,” Janice S. Lewis, interim dean of Joyner Library, said.
Ashley Williams, project librarian, created a blog, “Bringing the Outdoors ‘Indoors,’” which provides regular online updates about the archivists’ work: http://blog.ecu.edu/sites/outdoortheatre/.
The archivists have been tackling the massive project alphabetically by state one box at a time, one person starting with A and another with Z, working toward the middle of the alphabet.
“North Carolina is still to come,” Williams said, but photos and materials from the state’s outdoor productions including the well-known “Unto these Hills” and “The Lost Colony” will be a part of the online archives.
The inventory so far indicates there was a boom of sorts for outdoor theater around America’s bicentennial. Many productions are related to history, such as the founding of a state or annual event, or an important historical figure.
“If not history, the other major theme is passion plays — anything related to Christ’s birth, life or death,” Williams said.
One of those, Texas-based “The Promise,” was performed in Russia in 1992 and hailed as the first Christian production since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Another taken abroad was “My Old Kentucky,” a drama about Stephen Foster, known as “the father of American music.” It was performed in Japan in 1986 and a large poster shows the main sponsor was KFC.
The archives will be a great resource for producers, directors, set designers, regional and local historians, folklorists, performing arts history majors, tourism history, Shakespeare and Renaissance festivals and anyone interested in the origin of outdoor drama, Dale Sauter, the grant’s principal investigator and manuscript curator at Joyner Library, said.
The Institute of Outdoor Theatre, founded in 1963, was created to support outdoor theaters with technical assistance, documentation of best practices and management and feasibility studies. To learn more, visit http://www.outdoor-theatre.org/.
Symposium peddles patient-centered partnerships
Innovative community health care driven by patient needs, and tailoring local resources to cooperatively address those needs was the focus of the 11th annual Jean Mills Health Symposium held earlier this month at ECU.
“North Carolina’s strength in health care comes from putting the needs of patients and community first,” said Dr. L. Allen Dobson, keynote speaker and current president and CEO of Community Care of North Carolina, the comprehensive network that manages health care delivery for the state’s Medicaid recipients and low-income residents.
Dobson told the audience — an assortment of health care providers, community and faith leaders, faculty, students and community residents — that eastern North Carolina has pioneered a successful model of collaborative efforts that put patient needs before health care industry needs.
Dobson also highlighted consolidation, noting how unsuccessful the shift from physician-owned practices to health-system-owned practices can be.
The higher costs associated with ownership consolidation often result from more care being delivered in high-cost hospital settings and hospital based ambulatory surgical centers, Dobson explained. While he noted that increased coordination of care and less duplication of tests and treatments help decrease costs for consolidated practices, he said physician-owned practices provide lower cost care.
North Carolina’s effectiveness in addressing such issues lies with the state’s collaborative efforts across disciplines and a knack for tailoring approaches to local resources, according to Dobson. Through these efforts Community Care ensures health care is focused at the community level and ensures patients’ needs are met, no matter their location, he said.
“Health care, just like politics, is local. You can’t take something that worked in Durham or Charlotte and make it work in little Washington,” he said.
The daylong symposium also featured panels and breakout sessions on ways community partnerships can address issues around obesity, diabetes and mental health, especially in minority populations.
The Mills Symposium was created by Amos T. Mills III in memory of his sister, an ECU alumna with a passion for community health and health equity. Presented by the College of Allied Health Sciences in collaboration with the ECU Medical Health Sciences Foundation, the annual event is aimed at generating awareness and solutions for health problems that plague North Carolinians and minorities in particular.
Upcoming Events:
- Tuesday: An opening reception for a new photography exhibit in Laupus Library will be held 4:30-6 p.m. on Feb. 17 in the library’s fourth floor gallery. AJ Sours, physician assistant for the department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the East Carolina Heart Institute will present “Roadside Attractions: Stop and Smell the Roses.” The exhibit will remain open through May 8. Contact Kelly Rogers Dilda at 744-2232 or rogerske@ecu.edu for information.
- Thursday: The Department of Anthropology and the Anthropology Student Organization will host an “Anthropology After Dark” open house from 6-8:30 p.m. to share the work of some of their faculty. The event is free and open to the public. Free public parking is available in the large B1 lot at the bottom of College Hill Drive. Contact Dr. Randy Daniel, 328-9455 or danieli@ecu.edu for information.
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