Playscript about the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Espionage Trial MS.M.054
Finding aid prepared by Dawn Schmitz
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
© 2010
The UCI Libraries
P.O. Box 19557
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, 92623-9557
949-824-7227
spcoll@uci.edu
Title: Playscript about the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg espionage trial
Collection number: MS.M.054
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Irvine. Libraries. Special Collections and Archives.
>
Irvine, California 92623-9557
Language of Material:
English.
Storage Unit: MS-S Box 001
Physical Description:
0.1 Linear feet
(1 folder)
Date: circa 1975
Abstract: The collection is comprised of one untitled playscript (50 pages) written by Barbara Clairchilde, Leslie Hoag and Dudley Knight.
The play deals with the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1951) and the couple's resulting execution (1953).
creator:
Clairchilde, Barbara
creator:
Hoag, Leslie
creator:
Knight, Dudley
The collection is comprised of one untitled playscript (50 pages) written by Barbara Clairchilde, Leslie Hoag and Dudley Knight.
The play deals with the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1951) and the couple's resulting execution (1953).
The first half of the play recounts the events leading up to the trial. The second half is comprised mainly of letters written
by the Rosenbergs during their imprisonment. Letters are to each other, their lawyer Emanuel "Manny" Bloch, President Dwight
D. Eisenhower, and their children.
The play was probably originally written to be performed on KPFK radio station in Los Angeles. It was adapted in part by Robert
Carl Cohen for the Rally to Reopen the Rosenberg Case, Santa Monica, California, February 2, 1975.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951. They were convicted when the court
determined they had provided information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. In 1953 they were executed for the crime,
an event that was and remains controversial.
Barbara Clairchilde, Leslie Hoag and Dudley Knight were associated with KPFK, a politically progressive radio station in the
Los Angeles area, in the 1970s. Knight was an actor who became a member of the faculty in the Department of Drama at the University
of California, Irvine, in 1981.
Acquired in 2009.
The collection is open for research.
Playscript about the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Espionage Trial. MS-M054. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine
Libraries, Irvine, California.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Processed by Dawn Schmitz, 2010.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Rosenberg, Ethel, 1915-1953 -- Archives
Rosenberg, Julius, 1918-1953 -- Archives
Activists.
Actors.
Cold War -- Archives
Scripts (documents) -- 20th century
Trials (Espionage) -- Archives