The Richard C. Norton Musical Theater History Collection consists of materials documenting musical theater including 25,000 playbills, 800 typescripts, and 1,500 published libretti, as well as sheet music and 78rpm records. Norton is the author of A Chronology of American Musical Theater (Oxford UP, 2002) a landmark work with details on thousands of Broadway productions. The collection was assembled to support the research for the his book.
In 2021 and 2022 Norton donated his vast archive to the UCSB Library where it is being preserved and made accessible to the public. A finding guide is available in the Online Archive of California with inventories to series 1-3 of the collection, including the playbills, typescripts, and published libretti. Other materials will are still being processed and cataloged.
For more information on Norton and his collection, see the UCSB Library's feature article on his collection and for assistance in using the materials, please contact Special Research Collections staff at special@library.ucsb.edu.
