A collection of material from acclaimed theater director, Henry Fonte, who served as the producing artistic director at the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre and the Director of Conservatory Programs in University of Miami for five years. He received his initial education from the University of Florida, earning both a Bachelor of Arts in 1973 and a Master of Arts in teaching in 1976. His acting career began in New York City where he was a founding member of the Pearl Theatre Company. He later founded the New Works Development Program at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
The collection is primarily comprised of playscripts, production notes, playbills, and programs but also contains audio-visual materials, posters, photographs, clippings, correspondence, theater set models, and various related items and ephemera from Henry Fonte.
The bulk of materials consist of magazines with articles about ballet in Cuba and Alicia Alonso, Cuba's prima ballerina whose ballet company became the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955. Materials also include theatre programs and clippings.
The James Baxter collection contains Florida related materials. Included are a deed of sale and title of a house in Flagler; theater publications from the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Miami Summer Star Theater, and the Dade County Auditorium Playgoer; postcards from Key West, Ft. Lauderdale, Port Everglades, Fort Myers, Palm Beach, and Miami Beach; a series of photographs of historic sites in Florida, largely lighthouses; a 1903 periodical titled "Liberty Boys of '76: The Liberty Boys in Florida, 1903"; an 1883 Vol XIX issue of Dime Beadle's New York Library, subtitled "Alligator Ike; or The Secret of the Everglade. A Tale of the Outlaws of the Okeechobee"; and a photocopy of the latter periodical.
This collection documents the activities of Teresa María Rojas in her capacity as a theater actress, theater professor at Miami-Dade College (MDC, also formerly known as Miami-Dade Community College) for more than 30 years and the founder of the Prometeo Student Theater Group.
The majority of the materials document Rojas' role as artistic director of the Prometeo Theater and the success of the students who performed in it. Portfolios and reviews contain information regarding her teaching at MDC, in the capacity of the director of the Prometeo Theater and an instructor. The papers contain scrapbooks chronicling her work as the director of the Prometeo Theater from 1985. The collection also documents her professsional work as an actress in Miami, Cuba and other Latin American countries. Her performances in various acclaimed productions are documented by clippings and photographs. Rojas measured her own success as a professor and artistic director of Prometeo by the success of her students. She played the engaging and lighthearted role of Ofelia in "Ana in the Tropics". As Ofelia, Rojas took on a similar matronly role as the one she had among her students at MDC.
Selected photographs, playbills, programs, letters, and clippings from the collection are available on the University of Miami Digital Collections portal under the CHC Theater Collections tab.
The Héctor Santiago Papers collection includes only part of his literary anthology, with future additions expected. The Papers include scripts, essays, short stories, reviews, clippings, and theater programs. Additionally, the collection contains personal and professional correspondence, interviews, awards, and financial records. Some scripts and stories written by Santiago in 1960s were excavated from the ground beneath a tree in Cuba where they had been buried for more than 20 years. In order to preserve these original typescripts, photocopies have been made for perusal. Also of interest is a group of letters written by Santiago’s fellow prisoners in UMAP.
Pedro Monge Rafuls is a playwright and the founder of the Ollantay Center for the Arts in Queens, New York and Ollantay Theater Magazine. His papers include records of the Ollantay Center for the Arts in Queens, New York along with a collection of ephemera documenting Hispanic and primarily Cuban theater, literary, and other arts in the area.
The approximately 3,000 playbills and programs in the collection include those published by Playbill magazine, souvenir brochures from Broadway, off-Broadway, and international productions, and programs from lesser-known professional theaters as well as amateur performances. The majority of these date from the 1960s through the early 2000s.
