The Erwin Piscator papers document Piscator's work during the periods 1936-1951 when he was in France and the United States and 1962-1966 when he was in Germany. The collection contains a large amount of correspondence to and from Erwin Piscator; manuscripts by Erwin and Maria Piscator, as well as various other authors; play and production manuscripts; records of various kinds (financial, educational, publicity, miscellaneous, photographic); and a guide, Classification and Arrangement of Papers, for further details (Microfilm 61).

The manuscript collection includes Erwin Piscator's papers, influenced by and concerning to a great extent the problems and main figures of the international theatre. The collection also includes manuscripts of various authors (1920-1970) which concern theatre matters.

The collection also contains financial records, a large number of educational records from 1940-1961, publicity records (1930-1970), and large number of photographic records as well as printed ephemera and Picastor's diaries  which begin in August 1912 and end approximately in 1917.  The beginning marks the time when Piscator left school (Gymnasium), at which time he was confronted with the question of the choice of a profession.  The diaries end with the time when Piscator served as a soldier in the trenches of Flanders.

There are about 280 loose pages of poems and prose.  These pages had been bound in different copy books but were ripped out later apparently by Piscator himself when he wrote the fair copies.  There are many poems on loose pages which reappear later in one of the diaries.