The collection is open to the public for research.
Copyright is retained by the copyright holders.
Tanya Moiseiwitsch Collection (PA 80), Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
The collection was processed and the finding aid written by Madeline Vasaly, 2008.
The collection is organized into four series:
Tanya Moiseiwitsch was born in London (UK) in 1914 to Daisy Kennedy, an Australian concert violinist, and Benno Moiseiwitsch, a Ukrainian classical pianist. She was the founding designer of the Stratford Festival (Canada) and collaborated with Sir Tyrone Guthrie on productions and even theatre design, beginning in 1945. Moiseiwitsch designed costumes and sets for hundreds of productions in England, including work at the Old Vic Company, Stratford-on-Avon, and at Covent Garden. She and Guthrie, along with Alec Guinness and Irene Worth, founded the Stratford Festival, in Canada, designing a platform stage in a huge tent for the first performances there in 1953.
In Minnesota, she is credited with the design of the first thrust
stage at the Guthrie Theatre in 1963, working jointly with Sir Tyrone Guthrie
and architect Ralph Rapson. Her work on the landmark 1967 production
Moiseiwitsch shuttled between Canada, at the Stratford Festival, the United States, at the Guthrie Theater, and England, where she designed costumes and sets at the National Theatre and Stratford-on-Avon, among other venues. She died in London in 2003, and was posthumously awarded an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada for her "enormous impact on theatre arts in the 20th century".
The collections consists of three boxes (varying sizes) of over 50 original costume designs in pen and ink or watercolor on paper. The bulk of the designs are for Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) productions and often include the names of the performer for whom the designs were made.
In addition to costume designs there are set designs for one play, a
production of
There are, in addition to the costume designs, reference notes collected for use in the planning and as inspiration for some of the costume designs.
Additional costume designs by Tanya Moiseiwitsch may be found in the Costume Bibles of the Guthrie Theater Archives (PA 3) in the Performing Arts Archives. Costume designs by Carolyn Parker may also be found in the Costume Bibles of the Guthrie Theater Archives (PA 3); costume designs by Desmond Heeley may be found in the Desmond Heeley Collection (PA 52.)
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The following section contains a detailed list of the materials in the collection.
Includes notes and research, letters, articles, programs, etc.