UPDATE: Sadly, rising numbers of infection in NYC have forced us to roll back our opening for now. You can still request free digital copies of paper materials at http://bit.ly/lpacopies.
The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive in the Theatre Division of NYPL is now making appointments to view material at the Library again. You can also request an appointment to view other material (special collections, books, etc.) as well, but the staff encourage you to make use of the electronic document delivery system for paper-based material if at all possible (http://bit.ly/lpacopies). To make an appointment to come into the library, set up a consultation at https://libcal.nypl.org/appointments/lpa. A librarian will ensure the material is available and will set up a time for you to visit.
So, question... apparently one needs a library card to take advantage of the electronic document delivery system, but I'm not a NY resident and there's no link to apply for the visitor card. How do we deal with that?
Anyone can use TOFT if you have a library card. And anyone can get a library card (although depending on where you live it might have different restrictions and expiration dates), but TOFT is not affected by the restrictions. You can get a library card by emailing us at theatre@nypl.org
This service is reserved for people with reasons for seeing the show as theatre professionals or educators/students. Anyone can be “thinking” about producing anything, so don’t be shy or shun away from seeing anything they have available because you don’t have a good enough reason. I’ve seen a few things, but didn’t take nearly enough advantage when I attended Juilliard and was right there all the time.