Providence Black Repertory Company records (Ms.2018.012)
Brown University Library
Box ABrown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu
Administrative Information
| ABOUT THE COLLECTION | |
| Acquisition: | Gift of the Providence Black Repertory Company. These materials were gathered from the building formerly owned by the PBRC, 276 Westminster Street in Providence, RI. They sold the building and all its contents when they ceased operations. The documentation was retrieved from the building by Brown University Library staff in 2018 prior to renovation by the current owner. |
| Processing information: | The goal for this collection was to retain as much information as possible while protecting the privacy of the employees and patrons. The records of the PBRC were located on the second floor of 276 Westminster Street, Providence, RI. Most of the files were still in locked filing cabinets. But some were in various areas of the office space, on the floor, and in desks due to renovation work that had already been done in the space. Brown University Library staff followed the functional organization created by PBRC staff which was evident in the organization of the files in the filing cabinets. The financial records were together, personnel materials in an alphabetical run, production records were found together in a filing cabinet, as so forth. The series titles in this collection were assigned by Brown University Library staff to describe the function of the various groupings. The materials found outside of the filing cabinets were integrated into the functional groupings/series. The files contained many documents with personally identifiable information, such as social security numbers, on contracts and pay stubs. Those documents would have been destroyed based on standard business record retention requirements and were not retained in this collection to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. A small sampling of actor contracts was retained to provide examples of the standard contract they used with any confidential information redacted. Records of the Providence Inner City Arts collective and the organization's occupancy of the Wit Building as Roots Cafe were found with and separated from the records of the Providence Black Repertory Company. Invoices for basic business supplies such as stationery, staples, and ink cartridges were not retained. We retained invoices that demonstrated the work of the theater group such as invoices for labor or supplies necessary for the production of a specific play. We did not retain timesheets for each week. Instead we retained the payroll tally sheets that provide evidence of the type of work performed and the staff employed for each task. We retained donor information to document the network of support but discarded all confidential financial information such as copies of checks and credit card numbers. |
| ABOUT THE FINDING AID | |
| Author: | Finding aid prepared by Karen Eberhart, Jeanne Ernest, Amanda Brynn, and Janaya Kizzie |
| Encoding: | This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-10-02. |
| Descriptive rules: | Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) |
