The Robert Crean Papers, 1947-1971, mainly document his work for television, but there is also material for motion pictures and theatre as well as a very small amount of biographical material and general correspondence. Included in the general correspondence, 1952-1971, are many letters to and from Sir Tyrone Guthrie concerning dramatic theory and the current state of the art, and personal matters. Crean typed comments about each of the television, motion picture, and theatre projects documented in this collection, and these comments (always on a single sheet) are filed at the beginning of the first folder on the project. Many of these projects were never produced.
The television material consists of almost seven boxes, most scripts but there are also some notes and correspondence. This material includes a folder concerning the 1969 Emmy Awards voting and scripts for four projected series, several teleplay scripts, and extensive files from his work for The Catholic Hour and CBS Playhouse. The care with which he constructed his scripts can be seen from the large number of rewrites for two CBS Playhouse shows, “My Father and My Mother” and “The Day Before Sunday.”
The motion picture material documents a produced short subject Inscape and seven unproduced projects. Treatments, notes, revised scripts, rewrites, and publicity material show his development of “The Great American Hangup” and “No Little Thing”; the record of other projects is very sparse.
Also sparse is the record of six unproduced plays for theatre written by Crean, and there is no material in this collection concerning his A Time To Laugh or other produced works for the stage.
