The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939

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The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939 contains flyers, photographs, scripts, and other materials that offer insights into the history of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), its productions, and its commitment both to providing work for theatre professionals and entertainment for millions. A search engine is currently unavailable for the collection, but this Learn More About It contains a variety of links to specific parts of the FTP’s administrative documents, playscripts, and production notebooks for performances of Dr. Faustus, Macbeth, and Power. These documents allow one to examine how this program reflected and influenced American history on and off the theatrical stage.

1) The Federal Theatre Project

In response to the Great Depression, Congress appropriated $4.8 billion for work relief and created agencies to administer the funds, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA put Americans to work in several public projects, one of which was the Federal Theatre Project. Despite being allocated less than one percent of WPA funding, the Federal Theatre Project employed approximately eight thousand Theatre professionals a year during its four-year run. The instructions and memos found in the administrative documents of this collection represent the variety of theatrical arts produced by the Federal Theatre Project as well as the guiding principles and goals of this organization.

The "Instructions for Federal Theatre Projects" include requirements for productions of Marionette and Children’s Theatres, Vaudeville, Variety, and Circus Projects, and teaching Theatre techniques. The project’s "Six-Month Report" also provides information about the Motion Picture Division which “reviewed and passed on many pictures for showings in [Civilian Conservation Corps] camps, and has gathered and presented to the camps historical, educational and scientific material in connection with the showing of certain of the pictures.”

Gala Puppet Circus Poster. Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

Vaudeville Frolic Poster. Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

Documents discussing the assignment of workers to FTP programs are available in notebooks from New York productions of Macbeth and Power. A June 28, 1937 memo from the Power notebook requests the replacement of thirty actors, while the casting notes for Macbeth states, “[W]e are forming the first Federal repertory company, some attention must be paid to obtaining the right people, for they shall be directed in many different and varied characterizations.” Correspondence such as the April 26, 1937 letter from the Power notebook requests specific actors and a review of this collection’s administrative documents (Box 964) yield “Personal Assignment” memos such as the one assigning Jack Seligman to the Children’s Repertory Theatre.

Other documents such as the report, “Educational Aspects of the Federal Theatre Project,” describe a variety of educational programs including marionette performances for children in Bellevue Hospital and for adults learning English as a second language. On page 21 of the report the argument is made:

Created Equal Poster. Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

In the sense that education is that which truly informs and awakens the spirit of a people, the Federal Theatre Project, taken as a whole . . . can be considered a significant educational effort that may have its effect upon and exert an influence over many communities for years to come Why do you think the scope of the Federal Theatre Project activities included more than traditional stage plays? What were the different units of the FTP? What types of jobs did these units provide? What audiences did the Project reach? In what ways might the educational role of the FTP have benefited the American people and the project itself?

2) Theatre and Audience

In the 1930s, the American Theatre lost much of its audience to new entertainments driven by technological innovations. Hallie Flanagan, the national director of the FTP, explained in a February 8, 1939 address that, “thousands of unemployed theatre professionals, affected not only by the economic depression but by the rapid development of the cinema and the radio, were destitute.” Flanagan described how the Federal Theatre Project reached out to the community by presenting plays “in parks and hospitals, . . . in public schools and armories, in circus tents and universities, in prisons and reformatories, and in those distant and unfrequented camps where 350,000 of America’s youth are learning all they know about life and art.”

Review of FTP's Macbeth.

The "Instructions for Federal Theatre Projects" were designed to develop a new audience and called for “the establishment of theatres so vital to community life that they will continue to function after the program of this Federal Project is completed.” This commitment is reflected in the “Audience” section of the FTP’s "Third Year Report" which noted that eighty percent of performances were presented free of charge “in state institutions – asylums, reformatories, homes for the aged, hospitals, prisons,” while a review from the Boston production notebook of Macbeth, “Federal Theatre’s ‘Macbeth’ Captivates Audience,” commented:

The people who came to "Macbeth" were not of that class who entreated decay of the Theatre by "patronizing" it, or by regarding it as an art, as one of the finer things of life. They were people, mostly poor, who came to the show because they wanted to see "Macbeth."

The article congratulates the Federal Theatre Project for “culling greatness from the tradition of the Theatre, and presenting it to its community for less than the price of a movie.” The price of a ticket is not the only point of comparison between this production of Macbeth and the movies. Orson Welles trimmed the running time of the play to one hour and incorporated a variety of auditory cues such as jungle drums, chants, and dramatic lighting to enhance his adaptation of Macbeth.

• What steps did the FTP take to revitalize American Theatre?
• What does the reviewer's assessment of the Macbeth audience suggest about the effect of the FTP on Theatre and its audience?
• How did film influence the expectations and interests of audiences? How did the FTP respond to such changes?
• Why did the FTP choose to produce classic plays?
• Did the means by which Welles and others sought to make these plays more appealing to a modern audience detract from the overall impact and original intent of the production of a classic?
• What makes a classic a classic?

Additional information is available in administrative documents such as “Classics Can Be Interesting!” which directly addressed educators, offering “to take the classics from between the dull pages of text-books and make them a real part of the lives of New York’s high school students.” Why did the Federal Theatre Project target the Civilian Conservation Corps camps? Is there a difference between presenting a play such as Macbeth to a paying audience and to high school students? What are the expectations of each group? What do these expectations say about the potential community role of the FTP and of Theatre in general? Did the FTP's exploration of new audiences change Theatre in America? Did the FTP succeed in making Theatre vital to communities?

"Classics Can Be Interesting!"

3) The Living Newspaper

In an attempt to create new plays, the Federal Theatre Project often recruited new writers. The project’s "First Six Months Report" acknowledges the criticism that it is much easier to build a dam or teach a trade than it is to develop a playwright. The report explains that one of the goals of the FTP is to create plays and provide training for aspiring writers: “Training for the playwright was the starting point of the Living Newspaper, a New York theatre unit engaged in portrayal of the news of the day, by writers who are attempting to dramatize salient situations objectively.”

... one-third of a nation Poster. Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

What does the Living Newspaper project and its use as a means of training playwrights suggest about the FTP's attitude toward what makes good art and artists? Why did the FTP promote plays about real life news events? How did the concept of the Living Newspaper plays relate to other WPA programs? Living Newspaper productions included Triple-A Plowed Under, an account of the Agricultural Administration Act that paid farmers to ruin their own crops, One-Third of a Nation, based on Franklin Roosevelt’s inaugural pledge to feed and house the nation, and Arthur Arent's 1937 play, Power, a history of electricity and the companies that controlled it. Despite the fact that the Living Newspaper was designed to incorporate contemporary news in a drama, there was some question whether drama would be of interest to the audience.

Reviews of two productions of Power provide conflicting assessments of the play in terms of its appeal to its audience. The Seattle production notebook described audience reaction as favorable: “About three scenes in, the audience would catch the rhythm and we never failed to close with at least four curtain calls.” The San Francisco production notebook, on the other hand, included a "Director’s Report" criticizing Power as a propagandist play that offered “no parts . . . to stir up the emotion of the audience”, suggesting that the author of such projects can succeed only if he “knows how to interest his audiences through their emotion and sentimental responses.” The expectations of the members of the Living Newspaper theatre unit are available in the Living Newspaper newsletter, which touts headlines “15,000,000 Enjoy WPA Shows.”

Living Newspaper Newsletter.

• Why might a Living Newspaper drama yield such differing results?
• What is the potential value of incorporating news into drama? What are the potential hazards?
• Is it valid to charge that Power is propaganda? Is that such a bad thing?

4) Tennessee Valley Authority

Switchyard at TVA's Wilson Dam Hydroelectric Plant, Sheffield, Ala., 1942. FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945

Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933 to maintain the forty-one thousand-square mile area that constitutes the Tennessee River system. In addition to managing navigation, flood control, and national defense, the TVA was charged with the production and distribution of hydroelectric power throughout the area. Private power companies competed with the TVA for physical and financial control of the nation's electricity market. In addition to building power lines before the TVA, private industry took legal action to stop federal funding of power plants.

Arthur Arent’s 1937 play for the Living Newspaper theatre unit, Power, chronicled the history of electricity from its discovery to the TVA’s legal disputes. The 1937 production notebook from Seattle’s Metropolitan Theatre includes a synopsis of the play, a brief chronology of legislation, and a publicity memo describing the TVA as “the first of the series of the government’s program of hydro-electric projects that if carried out will blanket the entire United States and, according to advocates, make a vivid reality of the New Deal’s plan to provide a ‘more abundant life.’”

From Power Publicity Memo.

On January 3, 1938, the United States Supreme Court defended the TVA when it ruled that government assistance of municipal power plants was constitutional. The Living Newspaper was committed to keeping its productions topical and Arthur Arent added a revision to the conclusion of Power that reflected that ruling. Publicity memos from February 3, 1938 and March 24, 1938 describe how Arent planned to incorporate new developments into the final scene of his play.

• Why were private companies threatened by the TVA?
• Who would benefit from government-sponsored hydroelectric projects?
• How did Power depict the TVA and the Supreme Court?
• Why was it important for the Living Newspaper to update Power?

5) Advertising

The playbills and posters from the Federal Theatre Project provide insights into how the theatres advertised their productions and their patrons. The playbill from the Hartford production of Macbeth features a full-page ad promoting the selling power of “Times Want Ads” while the Atlanta production of Dr. Faustus includes spots for a loan company, a sign painter, and an exterminator. The playbill for the New York production of Dr. Faustus, on the other hand, features ads for other productions such as The Show Off and Power, and for WPA publications such as the Federal Theatre Magazine, and the Almanac for New Yorkers, which was written by the Federal Writers’ Project.

Advertisement for Times Want Ads.

• How much of the program does the FTP reserve for advertisements?
• How do the ads compare to the rest of the content in the playbills?
• Why might the playbills advertise other FTP productions?

Poster from New York Production of Power.

Theatrical posters from Federal Theatre Project productions of Power in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco embrace the technological influences of modernism with angular lines, bright colors, and allusions to machinery. These pieces can be compared to the works featured in the Poster Gallery that accompany Carol Strickland’s discussion of the Federal Art Project in her article “Posters for the People” (one of four illustrated articles in this collection’s Special Presentation). Additional images are available by browsing Theatrical productions in the Subject Index of the Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection. What types of colors, fonts, and images are used in these posters? How do the Power posters compare to the pieces in the Poster Gallery? How do they compare to other theatrical posters? Why is it effective to advertise Power with modernist techniques? What techniques were used to advertise other Federal Theatre productions?