Theatre can be considered the most temporal of the fine arts; it is impossible to recapture the moment of performance. Documentation is thus even more important, for that is the only way to come even partially to an understanding of theatre as it was in the past. Utah's theatre has performed thousands of plays produced by a variety of organizations.

In anticipation of theatre, community leaders in 1861 included in the Articles of Incorporation for Salt Lake City the authority ". . . to license, tax, and regulate theatrical shows and amusements." Within four years of the founding of Salt Lake, the first play was produced. Brigham Young in a public address in Salt Lake City in 1861 said, "If I were placed on a cannibal island and given the task of civilizing its people, I should straightway build a theatre for the purpose."

The Salt Lake Theatre, built in 1861, was one of the finest theatres west of the Mississippi, and it maintained its own company of command performers. The Deseret Dramatic Association, while amateur, produced drama with a professional touch, often working in conjunction with visiting acting troupes. The meeting of the railroads in 1869 had an immediate effect on theatre and meant that all traveling stars would be available for engagements at the Salt Lake Theatre. Eventually the Deseret Dramatic Association gave way to completely professional performances.

In its heyday between 1870 and the 1920s, the Salt Lake Theatre billed the finest artists in America, from Utah's own Maude Adams to Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, John Drew, Richard Mansfield, Otis Skinner, George Arliss, Forbes Robertson, the Barrymores, and others. As Salt Lake prospered, additional theatres were built. The theatres were converted for the use of film as the motion picture industry grew.

In 1928 - 1929, after 66 years of service, the Salt Lake Theatre was torn down to make way for a gas station. After its demise, the colleges and universities in the state were the main focus of drama.

It was the amateur productions, however, that demonstrated the importance of drama to the public, for thousands of plays had been produced under the direction of the Mutual Improvement Association (M.I.A.), a recreational and cultural organization for young adult members of the LDS Church.

In this collection, the majority of theatre programs, advertisements, handbills, etc. are for the Salt Lake Theatre, although there are a few on the Grand, the Orpheum, and university productions.

The collection also contains some concert and ballet programs. In the collection, the most represented of these fine arts is music. Utah's two major musical organizations, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra, are represented in the collection. The first symphonic group, the Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra, was organized in 1892. Having no subsidy to depend upon (as the Tabernacle could depend upon the LDS Church), the career of symphonic music has been rocky. The Utah Symphony dates back to 8 May 1940, where it assembled in Kingsbury Hall to perform its first concert. It was in Utah's Centennial Year, 1947, that Maurice Abravanel was engaged to conduct the orchestra, and his magnificent leadership through 1979 made the orchestra one of the leading symphonic groups in the world.

While the collection contains deceptively few dance programs, as Utah has a stronger tradition of dance than in almost any other part of the country. Since 1996, the University of Utah's dance program has been ranked as one of the top 3% in the country. The University's ballet program was the first of its kind in the United States, founded by Utah native William F. Christensen in 1951. William Christensen, born in Brigham City, moved back to Utah in 1949 after co-founding the San Francisco Ballet Company and a ballet company in Portland, Oregon. In 1963, with the help of a Ford Foundation grant, Christensen formed the Utah Civic Ballet. In 1968, the Federation of Rocky Mountain States (including Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona) declared the troupe the official ballet company for the region, giving it the new name, Ballet West. Utah is also the home of the Utah Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, and the acclaimed Children's Dance Theatre. Ballet West and University ballet programs are included in the collection.

As dance, music and theatre are ethereal forms of art, it is fortunate these programs, playbills, advertisements, postcards, and souvenirs have been collected. The collection preserves the spirit of the performing arts and sustains their place in Utah's cultural history.