Credits

Thanks to all of the library staff and students who have worked so hard on the exhibition: Sara Lee Barnes, Garry Barrow, Winnie Chan, Gayle Cooper, Bradley J. Daigle, Valerie Daniels, John DaVanzo, Peter Eubanks, Edward Gaynor, Marie-Louise Kragh, Larissa Mehmet, Heather Moore, Melissa Norris, Jeanne Pardee, Hoke Perkins, Mercy Quintos, George Riser, Regina Rush, and Shannon Wilson.

Thanks to our lenders: Lewis Allen, William Muller, the Museum of the City of New York, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the University of Virginia Art Museum, and the University of Virginia Department of Drama Costume Shop. A special thanks to Sam Shepard for granting permission to display materials from his collection.

Graphic design by Josef Beery.

Poster photography by Michael Bailey.

The original website was designed in 2002 by Garry Barrow, Design Web Manager, U.Va. Library; it was built by Bradley J. Daigle and Valerie Daniels. Materials from the physical exhibition were digitized by staff in Special Collections Digital Services.

The current website was built in Omeka by the Online Library Environment team in 2013.

About the Curator

Margaret Downs Hrabe, Reference Coordinator for the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library since 1995, received her Bachelor of Arts degree in American History from the University of Delaware in 1971. Previous to her current position with the University of Virginia, Hrabe worked at the Jessup Library of Piedmont Virginia Community College where she became involved with the college’s drama program. Hrabe has performed fourteen major roles in PVCC drama productions, including the role of Rose Baum in Arthur Miller’s The American Clock.

A comment made by theatre actor and film star Anthony Hopkins when he attended the Virginia Film Festival in the Fall of 2000 inspired the idea for this exhibition. Hopkins spoke of the process of the actor donning the mask to become a character. Hrabe thought to extend that concept by exploring who creates the character and thus the mask—the playwright. Hrabe’s love of theatre and history coincided in shaping this exhibition drawn from the rich resources of American literature and history in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. She hopes that the viewer will be enlightened as well as entertained by the content.