Scope and Content Note
The Roger L. Stevens Papers span from 1863 to 2002, but the bulk of material encompasses Stevens's active professional life between 1935 and 1990. Collection materials are organized in two ways: by facets of Stevens's career and by function or material type.
Documentation of Stevens's activities as an arts administrator, a theatrical producer, and a real estate executive are divided into separate series, although there is significant overlap between all three areas. The most intertwined materials concern Stevens's work in arts administration and theatrical production. He served as the founding chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Council on the Arts, and the National Cultural Center (later named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), all while continuing to produce plays and musicals on Broadway. Stevens's efforts to establish a national cultural center, advocate for a national theater, and raise the profile of and support for the performing arts in the United States are found under Arts Administration. Stevens's Government Appointments are organized as a separate subseries. The Subject Files subseries provides further evidence of Stevens's advocacy for arts funding. The Producing Organizations subseries contains information about the activities of Stevens's various producing partnerships with material on office operations, tax records, and financial reports for a number of individual productions organized under the producing entity.
Stevens's career as a theatrical producer is primarily documented in Theatrical Production Files. A subseries of Theatrical Offerings and a subseries of Unproduced Scripts contain material on proposed productions. The largest subseries, Production Files, holds material related to specific plays and musicals in which Stevens held a financial stake. While hundreds of plays and other stage productions are represented, most of the material is limited in scope. For some shows there is merely a program or production still. Several shows are extensively documented-- 1776, The Best Man, Candide, The Cocktail Hour, Conduct Unbecoming, The Jockey Club Stakes, Mary, Mary, and Sheep on the Runway —with casting information, contracts, correspondence, financial reports, and/or scripts. This subseries includes a folder of production lists that record his financial involvement in each of the works he produced. A list of Stevens's theatrical credits between 1949 and 1987 is available in an appendix to this finding aid.
Information about less well-documented productions is found in the Correspondence - People series. Correspondence with figures such as Donald Albery, Nobuko Morris Albery, Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont, Henry Denker, Ninon Tallon Karlweis, Lars Schmidt, and Emmanuel Wax provide insight into the production process and help illustrate Stevens's international network of associates. The series contains hundreds of letters, notes, and telegrams that touch on every aspect of Stevens's professional life and include many personal communications within his wide social circle.
Before Stevens was an arts administrator or theatrical producer, he was a real estate executive. Real Estate Files, the largest series in the collection, documents Stevens's work buying, selling, building, and developing several commercial and residential real estate properties across the United States. Materials are organized into subseries by region or specific project, but just as with his work in the arts, there are significant overlaps between projects. Stevens also created partnerships across industries that brought his colleagues in theater to his real estate endeavors and vice versa.
Stevens ran his various endeavors from multiple offices, initially located in Michigan, but later in New York City and Washington, D. C. These offices communicated regularly and maintained Stevens's calendar, telephone logs, and carbon copies of his outgoing correspondence. The Office Files series represents a cross-section of activities that tracked Stevens's different enterprises and include extensive files of clippings, personal financial records, and materials on his business interests outside of the arts and real estate.
Stevens's active participation as a board member, officer, and advisor for a wide array of arts-related organizations is primarily documented in the Organizations series. It consists of correspondence and operational materials such as agendas and meeting minutes. Several particularly extensive sets of files include those for the American National Theatre and Academy, American Shakespeare Festival and Academy, Choate School/Choate Rosemary Hall, Metropolitan Opera Association, National Book Awards/National Book Committee, and Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Materials on Stevens's work with advocacy, funding, and performing arts organizations is also found in the Subject Files subseries under Arts Administration.
For his many career achievements, Stevens was honored by several arts organizations, community groups, and state and national governments. The Awards and Honors series collates these numerous recognitions, including his Tony Awards, Presidential Medal of Freedom, National Medal for the Arts, and Kennedy Center Honors ribbon.
Stevens's early life is documented in the Personal Papers series and includes memorabilia, photographs, school records, and correspondence with his family members. The series contains the personal correspondence and business papers of his parents Stanley G. and Florence O. Stevens. The papers of Stevens's wife, Christine G. Stevens, are organized as a separate subseries that holds her personal correspondence as well as logs recording the early activities of the Animal Welfare Institute, an organization Christine founded in 1951.