Book review: 1930s Federal Theater upheld workers, rankled segregationists
The 1930s Great Depression conjures soup kitchen images, long lines of hungry, unemployed people creeping slowly for a soup bowl and a bread crust. One-third of the nation was unemployed and those still working faced reduced hours. After the booming 1920s, many wondered whether capitalism could survive, and many turned to the communist Soviet Union as an alternative.
President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 election brought quick results, as the U.S. funded massive public works projects, building streets and sidewalks while Civilian Conservation Corps sent youth to the woods to rebuild parks. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) saved millions from hunger through job creation.
Not only were construction and factory workers hungry, but so were artists, writers and actors, for whom the WPA launched specialized programs. Amongst the most prominent was the Federal Theatre Program (FTP), which employed actors, stagehands, musicians, producers and writers. Performances were staged from Broadway to small towns, bringing communities together in dark times to enjoy live performance.
Productions were developed for children, rural areas and city neighborhoods. To ensure equal opportunity, people from multiple racial backgrounds were employed. This eventually raised the ire of Southern segregations, who feared African American and white people together on the public stage would crack racial barriers.
Many of these performances received rave reviews. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was staged in a tropical setting with an African American cast, touring the country and consistently selling out.
The Living Newspaper series examined current events, from farm policy to electrification efforts. Injunction Granted supported labor organizing and showed how the courts were used to block union efforts. One Third of a Nation examined slums and deteriorating housing. The play sold out in New York, then toured the nation, adapted in each community to local conditions.
The play harbored a fatal flaw – it directly quoted Southern Senators who opposed federal programs and assistance to African Americans and immigrants. Those Senators used the Theatre Project’s quotes to attack it and the WPA in general. Ticket sales soared after these public onslaughts but now the Project was a favorite conservative target. Further rankling the segregationists was a new play, Stars and Bars, examining African American status and lynching threats. Southern senators were busy thwarting an anti-lynching bill, which languished in Congress for a century, finally passing in 2022. Stars and Bars, its name changed to Liberty Deferred, was never produced.
Although Roosevelt’s New Deal was popular and created economic opportunity, as the 1930s waned conservative opposition mounted. Publicity hungry Texas Democrat Martin Dies chaired the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which immediately took aim at the Federal Theatre, claiming it was Communist Party infiltrated. They found their star witness in Hazel Huffman, briefly a FTP mail room employee. She claimed that Theatre Project head Hallie Flanagan was a Communist, though she had no proof. She was followed by actor Sally Saunders, who claimed that an African American fellow actor had asked for a date, enough to enflame the segregationists.
The Federal Theatre Project was dead, specifically singled out in legislation in 1939. Young Illinois Republican Congressman Everett Dirksen from Pekin mocked the Project in his remarks. The Theatre projected was terminated by a 373-21 U.S. House vote.
The House Un-American Activities committee lasted until 1975, specifically targeting Communist and leftist activity. Under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was established in 1965. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, written by former President Donald Trump staffers, calls for abolishing the Endowment.
The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy and the Making of a Culture War
By James Shapiro
Penguin Press, 2024
Besides being an excellent overview of the FPT and its productions, this book raises excellent questions. If government programs support the arts, do the artists maintain their independence or does the artistic effort sink into propaganda? And if artists are independent, does that include criticizing the government? In economic recession, the Theatre Program kept the lights on and employed thousands, a cultural enrichment to a nation suffering dark times. Most productions were non-controversial and uplifted both performers and the audiences. Famous names like playwright Arthur Miller, actor Burt Lancaster and actor and filmmaker Orson Welles received their start through the FTP, but so did thousands of unnamed actors, stagehands and writers. They maintained their craft, entertained thousands and were housed and fed thanks to a Great Depression ambitious effort. The Playbook is not only an excellent and readable history of the Project, but also a reminder on how the arts can become politically volatile, as artists “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Mike Matejka