The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project,
1935-1939, offers a number of primary sources with which to analyze
the history, effects, and influences of government-sponsored theatre
in America. Administrative documents
provide an opportunity to gain and reinforce historical comprehension
of the Federal Theatre Project’s development and the economic, technical,
and political obstacles that challenged the program. Analysis of the
production notebooks from Orson Welles’ interpretation of Macbeth
raises questions about race relations and racial stereotypes in early
twentieth-century America, while the administrative
documents also provide a good starting point for discussion and
debate over the merits of government-sponsored art. Although the collection
has no search engine at this time, its wealth of materials provide
a unique opportunity to research the day-to-day workings of the Federal
Theatre Project.
Chronological Thinking
The collection contains a number of tools for practicing chronological
thinking and gaining further insight into the Federal Theatre Project
(FTP) and its impact. The Federal Theatre Project was established
in August 1935 as one of four arts-related initiatives in President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). The FTP
had five regional divisions, with Hallie Flanagan serving as national
director (Flanagan had previously chaired the experimental theatre
department at Vassar College).
![Hallie Flanagan](images/flanagan.gif)
Hallie
Flanagan. |
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When Flanagan met with regional and
state directors for the first time in October 1935, her address,
"Is
This the Time and Place?", provided a brief history of her
involvement in the development of the FTP and called for the creation
of jobs in a new and vital American theatre that served the community.
The state of the theatre, she claimed, could be attributed to
more than the economic climate of the era. It was necessary to
reinvent the theatre: “For if we attempt to put people back to
work in theatre enterprises which are defunct, we are engaged
in temporarily reviving a corpse which will never be alive again.”
- What factors influenced the state of American theatre in
the 1930s?
- How does the creation of the FTP in August 1935 compare
to the development of other Works Progress Administration
programs?
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The changes brought about by the FTP in New York City are detailed
in the "Origin
and Chronology of Drama Relief in New York City.. . ." which describes
how “[v]arious new units and departments were established to handle
the activities of the extensive undertaking.” An examination of national
events and a brief biography of Hallie Flanagan are available in Lorraine
Brown’s article, "Federal Theatre: Melodrama,
Social Protest, and Genius", from the collection’s Special Presentation.
- How did theatre sponsored by local government differ from the
FTP programs?
- What elements of the FTP helped to keep theatrical workers employed?
- Were there any FTP programs that were ill advised?
- How did the FTP evolve over its four-year existence?
- What impact did the FTP have on the careers of theatre workers
such as Flanagan, producer John Houseman, and actor and director
Orson Welles?
Historical Comprehension: Production Limitations
The project’s "Third
Year Report" notes that ninety percent of Federal Theatre
Project funding was designated for labor costs. One section
of the report, “The
Plan,” explains that limited funds required that a new theatre
vocabulary be developed: “writers, actors and designers must
try for a rapid, simplified, and vivid form of stage expression.”
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The production notebooks from various
performances of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus detail the challenges
facing each production. The director’s
notes from the New Orleans production explain, “The difficulties
at times seemed insurmountable as the theatre was literally being
built under out feet while we were rehearsing and getting out
the sixty-nine costumes used.” The notebook's production
notes outline the requirements for the production while the
"Critic’s
Opinion" page includes a description of the space that houses
the production: “the building has been slicked up at low cost.
. . There is only one fault in the auditorium, the seats have
not been slanted – this because the money ran out.” |
![Floor Plan for New Orlean's Dr. Faustus](images/design.gif)
Floor Plan for New Orleans' Dr. Faustus".
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A "Sound
Department Report" describes the renovations needed by many
theatres rented or leased by the FTP, which required “highly technical
installation of sound equipment in order that the utmost efficiency
could be rendered the public and the actors themselves. Many of
the theatres had never been equipped with sound and therefore
echoes had to be eliminated by technical means.” |
Obstacles were also faced in the productions themselves.
The Detroit production
notebook includes a "Director’s
Report" describing the limitations of the production:
Casting called for considerable doubling on the
part of our Acting Company, yet at the same time it gave every
one an opportunity of working in the last play of the season.
Our project at that time had neither the lighting equipment
nor staging facilities to make of the production.
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![Scene from Detroit's Dr. Faustus.](images/detroit.jpg)
Scene from Detroit's Dr. Faustus.
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This situation prompted the unit to
design the play so that it could be performed with a minimum of
technical requirements, allowing them to take the production to
many audiences: “It was our spot bookings that brought the production
out of the 'red'; and the very nature of the play brings numerous
requests, particularly from Churches and Schools, for additional
performances.”
- Why was it important to allocate most of the FTP funds to
salaries?
- How did the FTP productions reinvent the vocabulary of the
theatre?
- What were the limitations of the productions?
- Were there any benefits to these limitations?
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Historical Analysis and Interpretation: The Negro Unit Production
of Macbeth
![Maurice Ellis as Macduff](images/macduff.jpg)
Maurice
Ellis as Macduff in Macbeth,
New York, 1936. |
Producer John Houseman and African-American actress Rose McClendon
ran the Negro Theatre Unit, one of five major production units
in the FTP. This troupe was responsible for Swing Mikado,
a swing version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s piece, W.E.B. DuBois’
Haiti, and Orson Welles’ interpretation of Shakespeare’s
Macbeth. Wendy Smith’s
1996 article, “The Play That Electrified
Harlem” explains the genesis of this unit and its production
of classics such as Macbeth:
Harlem audiences, Houseman concluded, would be offended
by uptown productions of racial dramas written from a white
point of view. And in the militant atmosphere of the '30s, the
revues and musicals that had gained mainstream acceptance for
many black performers "were regarded as 'handkerchief-head'
and so, for our purposes, anathema," as he wrote in his memoirs
. . . Houseman decided that one part of the Negro Unit should
do classical plays "without concession or reference to color."
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- What does it mean to do a classical play "without concession or
reference to color?"
In 1936, Orson Welles set William
Shakespeare’s Macbeth in nineteenth-century Haiti with
an African-American cast. The costume
designs, photographs,
and production
notebook from Welles’ Macbeth provides a vivid sense
of the production. The notebook contains information such as a
description
of the play’s overture, “Yamekraw” as “a genuine Negro treatise
on spiritual, syncopated, and blues melodies expressing the religious
fervor and happy moods of the natives of Yamekraw, a Negro settlement
situated on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia.” A sample of the
music from “An
African Dance Drama,” features chants such as “Aha ga-a ra
wu-ro a-ga-a ra-wa.” |
![New York Macbeth](images/haiti.gif)
New
York Production of Macbeth. |
The Los Angeles production notebook of
Macbeth includes a "Director’s
Report" describing the changes in setting from Haiti to Africa
and explaining that the changes were “influenced architecturally and
physiologically by a Negro civilization existing a great number of
years ago in Abyssinia and Madagascar. This evolved into a very interesting
treatment for both set and costumes.” The play’s synopsis
also argues that the casting of African-Americans makes the story
“more humanly plausible”:
Especially in this colored version . . . the hero appears
to be a mere tool in the hands of a witch doctor and his sinister
three sisters, who, with weird and sensuous jungle incantations, strip
all pretense . . . off loyalties. Thus it is the witch doctor and
his witches who become the real heroes of “Macbeth”. . . .
- Why did the directors choose Haiti and Africa as the settings
of their interpretations of Macbeth?
- What assumptions about the casting of African Americans in this
classical play might these choices reflect?
- What were the vehicles by which the settings were conveyed according
to the photos, costumes, lighting designs, and the production notebook
for the play?
- To what extent do the productions seem to reflect stereotypes?
- How do the directors' explanations of referencing Yamekraw and
Madagascar affect your assessment of the plays and their potential
stereotyping?
- How do these interpretations, set in Haiti and Africa, contribute
to or change the overall effect of the play?
- When the New York production depicted Macbeth with Haitian witch
doctors, jungle drums, and a sympathetic hero, was the Negro Unit
presenting a classic “without concession or reference to color?”
- Is it possible to have an African-American theatre unit that doesn’t
directly reference race? Is that a positive or negative thing? Why?
Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making: Government-Supported
Theatre and Censorship
In her February
8, 1939 address to the House of Representatives’ Committee on
Patents, Hallie Flanagan claimed that in funding contemporary theatre,
the United States joined a long standing tradition: “Four centuries
before Christ, Athens believed that plays were worth paying for out
of public money; today France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia,
Italy and practically all other civilized countries appropriate money
for the theatre.”
Lorraine Brown’s article, "Federal Theatre: Melodrama,
Social Protest, and Genius" (one of four illustrated articles
in the Special
Presentation) notes that certain regions of the country provided
government funding for theatre but that there was concern that federal
support “fostered amateur rather than professional performance” and
caused controversy between “those who favored a social service theory
of dramatics and the professional Theatre people whose goals were
at odds with the government-sponsored Theatre programs.” Flanagan’s
1939
address dismissed this concern when stating: “[D]ue to Mr. [Harry]
Hopkins’ wisdom in stating at the beginning that this was to be ‘a
free, adult theatre,’ it has been in spite of certain local problems,
remarkably free from censorship.”
The report, “Reorganization
of the Play Bureau,” claims that there “are no taboos on subject,
form, or theme,” but articulates the following guidelines:
first, that a play shall be about something; second,
that a play shall not violate good taste …We do not sympathize with
directors who experiment only in degrees of bad taste …We wish to
work through the accepted tastes of the community, rather than attempt
to foist our opinions of plays upon them at a time when they would
only be suspicious and unresponsive.
Some conflicts did, however, prompt
complaints of censorship. The Living Newspaper’s first planned
production, Ethiopia, was shut down when it was ruled that
the FTP could not depict current heads of state. And, in perhaps
the most famous FTP event, Cradle Will Rock was canceled
on the eve of its debut, against a backdrop of suspicion that
the FTP had been infiltrated by communists. It was feared that
the pro-union musical would fuel the workers' strikes and other
acts of civil unrest prevalant at the time. Arriving at the theatre
on the day of the intended debut, cast and crew were barred from
entering by government soldiers. Orson Welles, intent on presenting
the show, secured another theatre and led the company and the
waiting audience to it. Since the company's unions prohibited
them from appearing on stage in this new theatre, the actors and
muicians performed from seats in the audience, with the composer
providing a piano accompaniment from the stage. |
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![Orson Welles](images/orson.gif)
Orson
Welles ca. 1937. |
- What types of threats did plays such as Cradle Will Rock
and those featured in Brown's article pose to the nation?
- Did the Federal Theatre Project allow government censorship?
- Should art be funded at least in part by the federal government?
- If the government does provide funding, do they have the right
to enforce limitations on expression?
- What is a community standard? Who defines it?
- Should communities establish standards of decency? If so, should
there be local or federal standards? How should these standards
be enforced?
- How should an artist respond if he is informed that he is violating
community standards?
- What is the relationship between an artist, his or her work, and
the community? Does there necessarily have to be a relationship
between the three?
- Does art have the power to incite social unrest? How?
- How does the government currently sponsor art?
- What types of contemporary controversies arise over government-sponsored
art? How do these controversies compare to those in the era of the
FTP?
Historical Research Capability
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