Alva Rogers Papers
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Abstract
Alva Rogers (born 1959) is an artist, playwright, vocalist, actress, and songwriter. Best known for her role as Eula Peazant in the 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, Rogers has been involved in numerous creative endeavors throughout her career. As a playwright, Rogers wrote plays such as Nightbathing, the doll plays, and Scooping the Darkness Empty. Rogers was also a vocalist in the New York City alternative rock group Band of Susans. This collection contains materials pertaining to her artistic work such as scripts, sheet music, show programs, and recordings, as well as personal material including journals, letters, and photographs. Audiovisual and born-digital materials including recorded live performances are also included in this collection. This collection spans from 1964 to 2018 with the bulk of the material dating between 1986-2011.
Biographical Note
Alva Rogers is an artist, playwright, vocalist, songwriter, and actress for theatre and films. Rogers was born on October 22, 1959 in New York City, where she was raised by her father. Rogers attended The High School of Music & Art in Manhattan, where she graduated with a concentration in vocal music. Rogers began her academic career with the intention of writing about race relations, gender, and the politics of African American music as a journalist, and received a Bachelor's degree in American History from Marietta College. She also lived in Europe for a short time after graduation. Rogers went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Musical Theater Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 1995, a Master of Fine Arts in Literary Arts from Brown University in 1998, and a Master of Arts in Teaching with a focus on History from Bard College in 2013. Rogers has one daughter, India Rogers-Shepp.
Rogers became active in the downtown performance scene in 1988. She began her vocal career with Butch Morris as a member of his various vocal ensembles. She performed as a vocalist with Vernonn Reid, Elliot Sharp, Wayne Horvitz and Band of Susans. Rogers regularly performed her original compositions and arrangements at the Knitting Factory, a performance venue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She appeared on "Live at the Knitting Factory", a compilation album released by A&M Records in 1989. She also performed with Urban Bush Women, Laurie Carlos, Kaylynn Sullivan and the Rodeo Caldonia High Fidelity Performance Theatre.
Rogers's work, informed by her experiences with racism, sexism, the Black Power movement, and feminism, draws on themes of dreams, magical realism, and surrealism - exploring ideas of emotion and memory. Her work often includes multimedia elements such as music and puppetry. Rogers has been highly awarded for her work as a writer and performer, including receiving a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Performance in 1988, a Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art Grant for the development of the bride who became frightened when she saw life open in 1994, a Bessie Award as co-creator of the radio play Stained in 1995, a Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production Grant to produce the doll plays in 2001, a Jim Henson Foundation Grant to develop and produce the musicals Mermaid and Sunday: A Musical Fable at The Women's Project in 2003, and a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant in Playwriting in 2004. She was a resident at The Joseph Papp Public Theater from 2003 to 2005 and at the Hedgebrook Women's Writers colony in conjunction with Seattle Repertory Theater in 2011.
As a film actress, Rogers appeared in Spike Lee's 1988 film School Daze in the role of Doris Witherspoon, and made appearances in various other films by Lee. Her work in School Daze attracted the attention of Julie Dash, director of Daughters of the Dust (1991). She was also featured in Kerry James Marshall's film The Doppler Incident (1997). Rogers also collaborated on various film projects with writer and director Lisa Jones.
As of 2020 Rogers continues to live and work in New York City.
Arrangement
Organized into three series: Series I. Artistic Works; Series II: Biographical Materials; Series III. Administrative Files.
Scope and Contents
The Alva Rogers Papers contain material related to Rogers's life and her creative works as a playwright, songwriter, actress, vocalist, and visual artist. The collection is mostly comprised of various ephemera relating to Rogers's theatrical performances and art shows as well as scripts and sheet music written or performed by Rogers. The collection documents Rogers's creative processes with notated manuscripts, research, and source materials. Included in the collection are scripts for her work of magical realism the doll plays, script and score for her musical Sunday: a Musical Fable, and a full length audio recording of a 1995 performance of Nightbathing. Also included are personal materials such as journals, letters, and photo albums, mostly relating to her life in New York City. The collection also documents her life as a professional artist and scholar with materials such as fellowship applications, awards, contracts, scholarship letters, and a copy of Rogers's Master in Fine Arts thesis from Brown University.
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People
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Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Alva Rogers Papers; MSS 407; box number; folder number or item identifier; Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donation of Alva Rogers, 2014; additional accessions were donated by Rogers in 2019 and October 2022. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 2014.407, 2019.059, and 2023.006.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Access to audiovisual materials in this collection is available through digitized access copies. Materials that have already been digitized are noted in the collection's finding aid and can be requested in our reading room. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact special.collections@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted.
An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
Appraisal
During processing an archivist identified personal family records and commercially available audiovisual material. A curator returned these materials to the donor in 2021.
About this Guide
Processing Information
In the spring and fall of 2020, the collection was arranged and described by an archivist. The collection was divided into series based on record type and material was arranged together intellectually within these series. Paper material for each series was brought together physically. In February 2023, an accretion was rehoused in archival boxes and folders (Box 18), with materials intellectually incorporated into the existing series structure.
Routine financial statements, duplicate publications, and documents with sensitive personal information were removed. Personal records related to family members and commercially available audiovisual materials were returned to the donor.
Computer discs were forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged.
New York University Libraries follows professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity of the content.
