Welcome! How did this Archive Come to Be?
In 1987, Carol Cohan authored “Broadway by the Bay,” covering the Playhouse’s history up to 1986, but there was no similar documentation for the subsequent years until its closure in 2006. This period marked some of the Playhouse’s most significant productions.
Arnold Mittelman, who had been the producing artistic director of the Playhouse from 1985 until 2006 wanted to ensure that this history would be recorded. In 2023 the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation and its President, Alberto Ibarguen, responded to Mittelman’s concern to preserve the entirety of the rich history of the Coconut Grove Playhouse.
Arnold Mittelman’s Acknowledgements
The Knight Foundation provided funding that enabled research into available archival documents about the Playhouse and the transformation of these historic paper documents into a digital archive of the theater’s history. This work was to focus on the years 1985-2006, which had not been covered in Cohan’s work. However, to make the on-line history more comprehensive, Mittelman decided to have the archive commence in 1956.
With the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mittelman organized a small professional team that collaborated for almost two years to create a digital archive that chronicles the Coconut Playhouse Productions and Educational Programs 1956-2006: Arnold Mittelman (Director), Justine Shayman (Manager), Evelyn Shunaman (Researcher), Louie Fleck (Archivist), and Jorge Pires (Developer).
Carol Cohan wrote a comprehensive history of the Coconut Grove Playhouse in 1987.