Institute friends Grayce Burian and her husband, the late Jarka Burian, a distinguished member of the UAlbany Theatre faculty, are the subjects of an article in the current issue of Folio, the newsletter of The
Ohio State University Libraries. An excerpt follows:The Czech Collections at the Theatre Research Institute
by Nena Couch
"The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute is an active participant in a variety of international initiatives and partnerships involving Czech theatre…"
"One of the Institute’s major Czech treasures is the Jarka M. Burian collection which offers a tremendous resource for researchers in Czech theatre, containing his research papers, posters, programs, photographs, taped interviews with Czech theatre artists, books, and other materials. The Burian collection also documents major cultural and political events, including the Soviet bloc invasion in 1968, which Jarka and Grayce Burian experienced during their many research trips to Prague. Many individual theatre artists including playwright Václav Havel (later President of the Czech Republic), and the majority of scenographers whose design work is held at the Lawrence and Lee Institute are documented in the Burian papers."
"The Burian collection provides a focus of international engagement. During fall 2010, the Institute hosted visiting Fulbright Fellow Barbora Príhodová, Ph.D. student at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Príhodová’s Fulbright project was part of her doctoral dissertation work on scenographer Josef Svoboda. While it may seem counter-intuitive, it was in fact necessary for Czech scholar Príhodová to come to Columbus to research Czech scenographer Svoboda in order to, as she noted, 'benefit from Jarka Burian’s unique heritage as well as the rich American academic culture.' …"
