The Ellis Mayes Theatre Collection contains memorabilia and personal effects of Ellis Mayes, an actor with Knoxville's Carousel Theatre for several decades. Included are photographs, playbills, scripts, and personal mementos belonging to Mayes. Materials date from the 1940s to the 1990s.

This collection consists of Broadway playbills from the early 1920s into the 1960s; the collection also contains playbills from other theaters around the country, including the Shubert Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, the Barter Theater in Virginia and the Bijou, Carousel, and Staub theaters of Knoxville, Tenn., some of which date as far back as 1890.