TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview of the Collection

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents

Arrangement

Index Terms

Related Material

Detailed Description of the Collection

J.B. (Tad) Adoue Collection 1949-1973

J.B. (Tad) Adoue Collection

Biographical Note

Jean Baptiste "Tad" Adoue III was a business manager and investor in the Dallas Civic Theatre under the tenure of director Margo Jones.He was born in Dallas in 1910 to a locally prominent family with his grandfather founding the National Bank of Commerce (now Comerica Bank), and his father, Jean Baptiste Adoue II, acting as a Dallas civic leader and mayor in the 1940s. He attended North Dallas High School, the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University School of Law. He was a Navy lieutenant during World War II.

Tad Adoue is known for helping Dallas' legendary actress-director Margo Jones establish Theatre '47 and he is credited with discovering the playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee, and their play Inherit the Wind. Along with Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, He founded The Margo Jones Award in 1961. The award memorializes Ms. Jones'legacy by honoring an individual each year who has performed outstanding service to living theatre. Mr. Adoue served on the administrative committee for the award.

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Scope and Contents

The J. B. (Tad) Adoue Collection consists mainly of correspondence and nomination sheets received by Mr. Adoue in relation to the Margo Jones Award. These correspondence and nomination sheets relate to Adoue's role on the administrative committee for the Margo Jones Award. The collection also contains newspaper clippings, playbills, legal documents, brochures, press releases, and photographs. Much of the correspondence in the collection comes from the Law Offices of Silverstone and Rosenthal and George Freedley, the first Curator of the New York Public Library’s Theatre Collection. Correspondence and legal documents from the 1950s and 60s relate to Mr. Adoue's production of Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams and Southern Exposure by Owen Crump. Along with Margo Jones and Manning Gurian, Mr. Adoue produced Summer and Smoke in 1948 and Southern Exposure in 1950

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Arrangement

The filing system for the J.B. (Tad) Adoue Collection is arranged according to the nature of the documents in the collection. This arrangement draws from the original filing scheme which kept correspondence separate from photos, brochures, and legal documents. The arrangement also divides correspondence into different folders based on the subject or sender of the correspondence.

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Related Material

MA62-1 Margo Jones Collection, 1936-1960.Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library.

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Index Terms

This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.

Persons:

Organizations:

Family Names:

Places:

Subjects:

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Detailed Description of the Collection