Blog topic: University Archives

The University Archives is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Keith Johnstone papers. Johnstone, a British and Canadian pioneer of improvisational theatre, is best known for inventing the Impro System and Theatresports, the latter of which has become a staple of modern improvisational comedy and is the inspiration for the television shows such as "Whose Line Is It Anyway?." As an educator, playwright, actor and theatre director Johnstone's ideas about improvisation, behaviour and performance appeal to a wide variety of groups. From actors to psychotherapists, improvisation companies to theatre schools and companies, business and management training specialists and humanities research institutes, universities and film production companies have invited him to come to teach them about his ideas, and how they might apply them.

Hats off to Stanford: An exhibit on the Junior Plug Ugly, will be on display this summer in Green Library's Bender Room.

On April 24th, the University Archives was pleased to welcome back to the farm Jim McRae ('68), coordinator of the KZSU-sponsored Project South, which interviewed civil rights workers during the summer of 1965. Jim (seen here examining interview transcripts) sat down with us to talk about the project and even provided some personal photographs (below) and documents. 

During the summer of 1965, eight students from Stanford University spent ten weeks in the southern states tape-recording information on student participation in the Civil Rights Movement. The eight interviewers -- Mary Kay Becker, Mark Dalrymple, Roger Dankert, Richard Gillam, James McRae, Penny Niland, Jon Roise, and Julie Wells -- were sponsored by KZSU, Stanford's student radio station, and their original intent was to gather material suitable for rebroadcasting in the form of radio programs. Northern college students who were working in the South for the first time were the major focus, although many other topics were also investigated. To find out why these students decided to go to the South to work for the movement, what they expected to find there, what they did find, the pressures they experienced, their reaction to these pressures, what they accomplished, and what they planned to do in the future (both near and distant), they interviewed as many students as possible. What is planned is a series of programs expressing in the volunteers' and workers' own words, their motivations and their feelings towards the many aspects of the South and of the Civil Rights Movement experienced that summer.