{"id":10112,"date":"2022-03-24T09:35:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T13:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=10112"},"modified":"2022-04-05T12:46:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T16:46:25","slug":"exploring-the-martin-cohen-theater-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=10112","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Martin Cohen Theater Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I took a turn away from my standard digital work to do something I haven\u2019t done since I was a teeny weeny undergraduate student about\u2026.ten years ago (hey, 30s are the new 20s)\u2014PROCESSING!<\/p>\n

And I got a great collection to jump into.\u00a0 The materials belonged to a late GMU professor, Dr. Martin Cohen (d. 2019). Cohen had a passion for history and taught it at George Mason for over 35 years, but his other passion was the arts! During his life, Cohen saw hundreds\u2014and I mean hundreds\u2014of plays, musicals, and films and his collection contains playbills and programs and posters highlighting his love of performance.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.

Dr. Martin B. Cohen.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Here\u2019s an overview of what the collection includes:<\/p>\n

Playbills<\/strong>\u2014Cohen must have had busy weekends, because his collection had so many playbills that it took me several days to go through them all!\u00a0 Some of the performances he saw include well-known classics, like Twelve Angry Men<\/em> and Cabaret<\/em>.\u00a0 Others are more obscure, like Waiting for Lefty<\/em> and My Name is Alice<\/em>.\u00a0 And they don\u2019t just include plays!\u00a0 Cohen\u2019s performance programs include artists like Alison Krauss and Shirley Maclaine, as well as local musical groups like the City of Fairfax Band.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got to imagine that he saw just about everything\u2014good, bad, or in between!\u00a0 And yet all of them were worth remembering.<\/p>\n

\"Eight

A sample of some of Dr. Cohen’s playbills.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Posters<\/strong>\u2014Cohen\u2019s love of performance obviously had<\/em> to include film.\u00a0 He was the ultimate fan of old Hollywood, and his collection contains over a hundred posters advertising old films like The Music Man<\/em> and The Ten Commandments<\/em>.\u00a0 Bible and historical stories were major fodder in the early heyday of the silver screen, so the posters include movies like David and Bathsheba<\/em>, Alexander the Great<\/em>, and Cleopatra<\/em>.\u00a0 Going through them is a great exploration of how film has changed over time.<\/p>\n

\"A

They loved their epics.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\"A

Oh yeah, there are posters in these tubes too.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Artifacts<\/strong>\u2014Rounding out Cohen\u2019s collection are a variety of his other collectibles, including vintage comic books and sheet music of Broadway standards.\u00a0 But, let me tell you, there are a ton of gems in here.\u00a0 Did you know that there were games focused on Disney characters, like Donald Duck and Pinocchio? Well, there are, and Cohen collected them.<\/p>\n

\"A

I ain’t lying!<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Do you remember those old classic Viewmasters? Cohen did, because he had one of the very first Viewmaster Stereoscopes with reels of U.S. landmarks and National Parks.<\/p>\n

\"A

This is the grownup version of the one I had as a kid.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Probably the most unique thing this box contains is an \u201cAuto-Magic Picture Gun\u201d\u2014that is, a projector that looks like a gun you can \u201cshoot\u201d at a wall. Oh, the things people come up with!<\/p>\n

\"An

Wow, folks<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Cohen collection is a treasure trove if you\u2019re a fan of film, theatre, music, or just interesting people! The fully processed collection is now open for research in SCRC! Check it out!<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow SCRC on Social Media and look out for future posts on our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0accounts. \u00a0To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us at\u00a0speccoll@gmu.edu<\/a>\u00a0or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I took a turn away from my standard digital work to do something I haven\u2019t done since I was a teeny weeny undergraduate student about\u2026.ten years ago (hey, 30s are the new 20s)\u2014PROCESSING! And I got a great collection to jump into.\u00a0 The materials belonged to a late GMU professor, Dr. Martin Cohen (d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101020,"featured_media":10118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[710,3,4,162,5,121],"tags":[445,540],"class_list":["post-10112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-finding-aids","category-news","category-recent-acquisitions","category-recently-processed","category-scrc-interest","category-scrc-picks","tag-film","tag-performing-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Playbills-min-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1870&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-2D6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7243,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=7243","url_meta":{"origin":10112,"position":0},"title":"Black History Month – Martin Luther King, Jr.","author":"Amanda Menjivar","date":"February 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Each February, the United States celebrates Black History Month, which underscores and celebrates the contributions of African American Culture to the American experience over hundreds of years. 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