J. Robert Barth, SJ, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1931 and attended Bellarmine College and Fordham University before receiving his doctorate in English from Harvard University. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1948 and was ordained in 1961. After teaching at Harvard and the University of Missouri in Columbia, Barth arrived at Boston College in 1985 as the Thomas I. Gasson Professor for English. He became the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1988, where he remained until his retirement in 1999. Under his leadership, Boston College established Theater and Arts Departments; Barth also oversaw the opening of the McMullen Museum of Art and founded the Boston College Arts Council, which organized the annual arts festival. After his retirement, he recorded poetry readings of Romantic and Catholic poets, including William Wordsworth and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Barth died September 21, 2005. In his honor, Boston College presents an annual award to a senior who has made outstanding contributions to Boston College in the fine or performing arts.

The Barth collection measures 5.75 linear feet and consists of programs from theater productions in Boston, New York, other New England cities, the Midwest, and a few European cities. There is also a program from a production at Fu Jen University in Taiwan. Clippings of annual theater overviews and reviews of specific productions are interspersed with programs.

This series is arranged in two subseries: A. Personal papers, and B. Theater programs. Subseries B is further divided into six sub-subseries by region: i. Boston, Mass., and surrounding area theaters; ii. New York, N.Y., theaters; iii. East Coast and Canada theaters; iv. Midwest theaters; v. British Isles theaters; and vi. France and Taiwan theaters. Items within each sub-subseries are arranged alphabetically.