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The Deep Blue Sea:

A Preliminary Inventory of the Collection in the Performing Arts Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center



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Repository: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Title: The Deep Blue Sea Collection
Dates: 1949-1955
Extent: 1 document box (0.42 linear feet)
Abstract: Clippings, correspondence, financial and legal documents, maps, notes, programs, and scripts document the 1952 American production of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea. The collection primarily relates to the financing of the production through a group of private investors. In addition, there are two original scripts, one annotated by Rattigan.
Language: English
Note: This brief collection description is a preliminary inventory. No indexes are available in this inventory.

Administrative Information

Acquisition:

Purchase, 2008 (R16565)

Processed by:

Ancelyn Krivak, 2008

Restrictions

Access:

Open for research

Scope and Contents

Clippings, correspondence, financial and legal documents, maps, notes, programs, and scripts document the 1952 American production of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea. Producers Alfred de Liagre, Jr. and John C. Wilson brought Sea, a critical and commercial success in London in 1952, to New Haven for a brief try-out and to Broadway on November 5, 1952, with Margaret Sullavan in the starring role. This collection primarily relates to the financing of the production through a group of private investors.

The clippings document Wilson’s earlier work on the 1949 production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Nearly all of the correspondence is with investors or would-be investors, arranged alphabetically by last name, according to the original order of the collection. Financial statements for the investors, legal agreements with them, and various informal notes, such as lists of investors and box office receipts, illuminate the financial history of the production.

The collection also contains a map of the Morosco Theatre in New York, and programs from the production at that theater and from a short engagement at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre in 1952. Finally, there are two scripts belonging to Wilson, one annotated by Rattigan and one finished script that incorporates those annotations.

Related Material

Photographs of the 1952 American production of The Deep Blue Sea can be found in the Bob Golby Collection in the Performing Arts Collection. The Manuscript Collection holds the papers of director Frith Banbury and a small collection of Rattigan manuscripts, as well as correspondence with Rattigan in various collections. The B. J. Simmons Collection in the Performing Arts Collection includes a production portfolio for the 1952 London production, and a caricature drawn for this production can be found in the Ronald Searle Collection in the Art Collection.

Container List

Series I. Production Materials, 1949-1955
Container
1.1 Clippings re Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1949, undated
Correspondence
Container
1.2 With investors, 1952
 
1.3 Opening night telegram, November 5, 1952
 
1.4 Financial reports and statements, 1952-1955
 
1.5 Legal documents, 1952
 
1.6 Map, Morosco Theatre, New York City, undated
 
1.7 Notes, 1952, undated
 
1.8 Programs, New Haven and New York, 1952
Scripts
Container
1.9 With Rattigan’s annotations, 1951
 
1.10 Finished typescript incorporating annotations, 1951