The Paul Baker Experience: Crossing the Finish Line

“The time has come” the walrus said “to wrap this thing up; you’re not even a student anymore.” Well…it was something like that. I wasn’t really listening.

The completion of the Great Process Paul’s Papers Project has mirrored my exit from Trinity. Each time I say goodbye, it turns out there’s an opportunity or responsibility that keeps me on campus a little bit longer, and it’s been that way with Professor Baker. Trying to make the collection as sensible, orderly, and lasting as possible has meant going back and making little changes, not quite letting go. But now our days are numbered. I project that Paul’s papers will be processed post haste just as my time at Trinity (and in Texas) trickles from tide to tiny tributary before it terminates. I’m going to miss it of course. All of it. Working in the archives for four years has given me a special insight into the history of our institution. I consider all of the personalities preserved here my intellectual ancestors, and I have fit myself and everyone I’ve ever met at Trinity into the fabric of our collective story. 

Hanging out with Paul Baker has only reinforced this feeling. The plans, notes, and photographs of the first Ruth Taylor Theatre, the barely recognizable old Attic theatre space, the dressing rooms with their familiar concrete walls and forever-worn out lighted mirrors—these look like home to me. Even in the records from Baylor and the Dallas Theater Center, it’s easy to trace the Baker influence as it made its way toward Trinity. As usual, I find the collection’s photographs most compelling and exciting. Those pictures of Professor Baker and Charles Laughton that thrilled my little heart at the beginning of the project are still there of course, along with an unidentified photograph that I am determined is of Katharine Hepburn. My favorites, however, are pictures of a 1946 production of The Skin of Our Teeth, the first play directed by Professor Baker after his return from serving in WWII. They are beautiful and reminded me of what a wonderful time I had in Trinity’s 2014 production of the same play. It’s important to me that they be preserved and seen. 

Then there’s one more reason I’m so fortunate to be closing my time here with Paul Baker. In the first week of August when I start my internship for the Actors Theatre of Louisville, I’m going to be officially really and truly untethered from Trinity, from my cherished faculty, the theatre department, and the archives. I’m hopeful that my studies of our theatrical and educational past will arm me for my future, that I will be able to embody the tirelessness, passion, and stubbornness so clearly visible in the remnants of Paul Baker—my intellectual ancestor. 

There’s not much time left here for me, Trin-Trin, but Professor Baker will be here and available to you for years and years to come. I recommend you get lost down in the archives once or twice before the time comes for you to untether.

Don’t let these humble boxes fool you. #yesfilter

1960s photograph of actresses in the stage right dressing room of Trinity University’s Theatre One

--Kate Cuellar, Class of 2015

The Paul Baker Experience: Embarking

There are a lot of reasons to love working in Special C., not the least of which is digging up old photos of your professors and sharing them with your friends (Nice hair, 1990s Tim Francis!). I thought that over the course of three and a half years here, I had dug up and poured over every piece of information about my beloved theatre department that the university had retained here. Imagine my surprise when I learned that we have been housing a collection of papers from Paul Baker (Wow, right?!). Okay, maybe you don’t know who Paul Baker is, so my surprise is difficult for you to imagine. 

Some context: Paul Baker was a theatre teacher, who came to Trinity from Baylor in 1963 after the Baptist university closed his production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. His move was more of a return, since he graduated from Trinity’s Waxahachie campus in 1932. What little I already knew about him was colored by the vague sense of reverence with which members of the current faculty occasionally mention “the Baker years,” but I knew that he had essentially established the theatre department at Trinity by bringing along all eleven members of his Baylor staff and that he had designed Trinity’s Theatre One, which preceded the Stieren Theatre that we all know and love. This collection was big news for me, promising an insight I’d never had. If I’d been making a little “Ancestry.com” hobby of the archives’ theatre records, this was one big green leaf. 

Having forced Megan to stop everything and take me to the boxes, I selected one at random and opened it. The first photo inside was a picture of Paul Baker huddled over a script with Charles Laughton (Google him). My nerdy heart exploded.

 Most of the materials need some TLC if they're going to last.

Much better! (And safer!)

So here we are a few months later, and I’m up to my elbows in Paul Baker. Though there are numerous press releases dated from his time at Trinity and some information about the architecture of his theatre here, the bulk of the collection dates earlier, detailing the development of his theatre program at Baylor and at the Dallas Theatre Center, where he served as founding artistic director.

I’m looking forward to many surprises. The cursory glance I took at the papers was not enough to get a real idea of the exciting things I know are there. The first real delight was a “Campus Sketchbook”—kind of like a tiny yearbook--from Waxahachie in 1931! Who knows how many of those are still floating around in the world? Then I must admit I was a little moved. See, that’s the other thing to love about working in Special C. There is something especially personal—even intimate—about searching through and caring for people’s papers and photographs. I can’t wait to get to know Paul Baker better over the course of the semester, and I’m hoping that when everything’s processed, the rest of our campus community can get to know him better too. 

Paul Baker's Papers should be processed and ready for visitors by the end of the Spring 2015 semester.

--Kate Cuellar, Class of 2015

Love is in the Air... of the Archives!

 

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, Special Collections & Archives has created a new exhibit entitled "Love in the Archives"--a tripartite collection of romantic materials culled from the collection by Angel, Kate, and me (with Amy's guidance, of course!).

I quickly claimed any love letters we might have, since I find the correspondence between lovers fascinating. Love letters offer a unique glimpse into a person's character and into their inner emotions, thus showing a different side of a person than the public may normally see. I composed a display called "Enveloping Desire" that contains materials ranging from war letters written to sweethearts to poetry written to historical women. Unfortunately, the letters in our collection seem to have a depressing theme of unrequited love: from Sam Houston's letters to a young lady who rejected him for one of his best friends to the poetic passion of a 12th century nun for the general that left her alone for the rest of her life, hardly any of Special Collections' romance seems to end happily.





Thankfully, Kate chose a happier topic, concentrating on the various romantic productions that Trinity's Theatre department has staged throughout the years. Kate was inspired to create her display by the fact that these plays, whether modern or Shakespearean, proclaim the same transcendent power of love; a topic both contemporary and ancient audiences can agree on. She focused on Trinity's production of Romeo and Juliet in 1978, Candida in 1989, The Importance of Being Earnest in 1977, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1978.

Finally, Angel combed through the Dicke Smith collection for her display, "Mastering the Art of Love," which exhibits romantic instances of visual art found in the collection. Each of the books that Angel used in this display showcase a different type and era of artistic expression. Examples range from a collection of glamour shots of Hollywood stars to the Postsecret book (which is made up of selections from the Postsecret blog of anonymous postcard confessions) to selections from Renoir's achingly beautiful portraiture.








Make sure to stop by while the exhibit is up and enjoy these choice specimens from Special Collections & Archives! As always, questions and comments are appreciated.

--Faith Bradham, '13 

Theatre

It’s no secret that I’m an enthusiastic thespian. I talk (read: complain) about rehearsal far more than I talk about anything else, and I complain (read: brag) about all the hours that I spend in the theatre building to most everyone. So it should come as a surprise to no one that when I’m at work in Archives, and I have completed all of my tasks, I flip through the card catalog, searching under all possible terms for information about the theatre department. Most recently I came across some very exciting photos of our building right after its construction in 1966. I marveled at how much the same certain things looked but even more at how different others looked. Most astonishing were the pictures of rooms and places that I could not identify, like a huge and mysterious tech booth, the location of which I could not fathom:

If actors were actually astronauts...

The theatre was remodeled in 2000, so the Stieren house and stage look strikingly different.

The space that we misleadingly refer to as “The Café Theatre” was clearly an actual café at one time:

We're all pretty upset we lost this classiness.

One change that has been enormously positive has been in how we use our lobby. I think any Trinity student knows that when you want to find a theatre student, the first place to look is in the lobby of the Ruth Taylor building, but this wasn’t always the case. Our lobby used to look like this:

Foyer 1966

Apparently, the department was very strictly against students lollygagging about in “The Foyer,” and instead students could use a green room off the Stieren (that no longer exists). Personally I could not imagine our building without at least three or four students diligently doing homework (read: gossiping unashamedly) in our space. Still, though almost fifty years have passed since these pictures were taken, I don’t feel so distant from them. It’s the faces that all seem the same. The spirit hasn’t changed at all.

TUPS Meeting

--Kate Cuellar '15, Special Collections and Archives Student Assitant