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Federal Theatre Project playscript and radioscript collection, Collection #C0002, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University.
Donated by the Federal Theatre Project.
Processed by Special Collections and Archives staff.
The Federal Theatre Project was a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which provided employment for large numbers of artists, writers, and performers during the Great Depression (1929-1939). The Federal Theatre began in 1935 and, until its end in 1939, flourished as the first and only federally sponsored and subsidized theater program in the United States. Directed by Hallie Flanagan (1880-1969), it was a way for theatrical professionals to gain employment during the Depression. Jobs were provided for many people, including actors, playwrights, scene designers, scene builders, seamstresses, lighting experts, ushers, box-office men, and stagehands.
Like many New Deal programs implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Federal Theatre Project was intended not only to benefit its participants, but also to enrich the condition of the nation. Theater was a distinguished part of American popular culture, but the economic downturn of the Depression had bankrupted the entire theater industry. As the theater houses closed down, the nation was left without an outlet for theatrical creativity. According to Hallie Flanagan, this hurt the nation as much as it hurt the theater industry - indeed, the nation was their audience and the theater could provide entertaining distractions from the effects of Depression as well as offer commentary on present conditions.
But it was not enough to simply return to the pre-Depression concept of theater. In the first meeting her staff Flanagan expressed her willingness to follow Roosevelt's experimental approach to public policy: "In a changing world, a world of experiment, the stage too must experiment - with ideas, with the psychological relationship of men and women, with color and light.... The theatre must grow up."
Flanagan pursued her ideal of developing the relationship between the Federal Theatre and the federal government: "Any theatre sponsored by the government of the United States should do no plays of a cheap, trivial, outworn or vulgar nature, but only such plays as the Government can stand proudly behind in a planned theatrical program, national in scope, regional in emphasis, and American in democratic attitude." To Flanagan, it was imperative that this new theater should be progressive and experimental, yet within a patriotic and informative framework.
The productions that best embodied Flanagan's views on theater were the Living Newspapers. These hard-hitting, poignant plays dealt with contemporary factual material, dramatizing issues such as housing, agriculture, labor, and destitution. Always ending on an upbeat note, Living Newspapers underscored the importance of hard work and morality in overcoming difficult times. Living Newspaper titles include: Triple A Plowed Under, Injunction Granted, One Third of a Nation, and Spirocheta.
The Federal Theatre was noted for employing black Americans at a time when the Federal Government did not actively protect the rights of minorities. The "Negro Theater" (as it was called in the 1930s) was an established industry before the Depression, and it greatly contributed to the success of the Federal Theatre Project. Some of the most spectacular productions were put on by black theater professionals, for example: Macbeth, Haiti, Turpentine, Run Little Chillun, and The Trial of Dr. Beck.
The Federal Theatre Project Playscript and Radioscript Collection contains over 200 copied playscripts and radioscripts, written and performed in the 1930s for the Federal Theatre Project. Also included is a collection of 62 copied Federal Theatre programs, handbills given to the audience at the beginning of a production. There is also a copy of The Flexible Stage, a book by Emmet Lavery about the history of the Federal Theatre Project. And there are the works of several noted authors in the collection, including Upton Sinclair, Orson Welles, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Arent, and Langston Hughes.
Organized alphabetically.
Special Collections and Archives holds the Federal Theatre Project collection, which includes numerous personal and organizational records as well as oral histories.
The scripts are also available as a series in the FTP digital collection.
Adelante, Battle Hymn, Beyond the Horizon, Big Blow, Black Empire, Both Your Houses, Children's Autum Festival, Class of '29, Cradle Will Rock, Dance of Death, The Devil Passes, Dr. Faustus, Emperor's New Clothes, Fantacy 1929, Frankie and Jonny, Fly Away Home, Green Grow the Lilacs, Hell Bent for Heaven, Help Yourself, Horse Eats Hat, How Long Brethren, Doris Humphrey-Charles Weidman Dance Program, It Can't Happen Here, Jonny Johnson, Judgement Day, Justice, Like Falling Leaves, The Lonely Man, Long Voyage Home, Madame X, The Man-The Tree, Merchant of Venice, The Milky Way, Night Must Fall, O Say Can You Sing, One Sunday Afternoon, One-Third of a Nation, Outward Bound, Pinocchio, Power, Prologue to Glory, Persuit of Happiness, Ready!Aim!Fire!, Redemption, Revolt of the Beavers, Sing for Your Supper, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Spirochete, Story of Ferdinand, Sun and I, Sun Rises in the West, Swing Parade, Taming of the Shrew, Theatre of the Southwest, Trojan Incident, Twelfth Night, Twilight of the Theatre, When Knighthood Was in Flower, Young Choreographers Laboratory, Young Tramps
by George H. Corey
by George H. Corey
by Arthur Arent; A Living Newspaper Play
by John Wiley; Suggested by a Story of Edgar Allen Poe's
by Virginia Yetes
by Thomas Hall-Rogers
by Thomas Hall-Rogers
A Peace Pageant for All Grades; The Catholic School Journal
by Alfred Kreymborg; A Mass Recital
by Langston Hughes; A One-Act Play of Negro Life
by Ben Heck and Eugene O'Heel; With a smirk at Irving Berlin and Moss Hart
by Porter Emerson Brown
by H. R. Hays
by Herb Meadow
by Herb Meadow; A Waterfront Tragedy; play reader reports
by Michael Blankfort and Michael Gold
by Mary Dirnberger; Dramatized from the familiar fairy tale
by John W. Dunn; A play of early Oklahoma life
by Theodore Pratt; Dramatized from the Novel by Theodore Pratt
by Theodore Ward; A Negro Tragedy
by Christine Ames and Clarke Painter; A Drama
by Ruth Comfort Mitchel and Alfred Allen
by Hallie Flanagan and Margaret Ellen Clifford; A play of our time; Based on a story by Whittaker Chambers
by Geo. McEnlee
by German List Arzubide; Adapted from a story by Anton Chekhov; Translated by Angel Flores
by john Woodworth; A legend... about Belle Starr, Queen of the desperadoes
by John W. Dunn
by Charles Dickens; Dialogue arranged for Marionetts and Hand Puppets by Alma M. Shaw
by H. Jack Bates; A Negro Folk Play
by Rose Carlyn
by Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
by Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
by Paul Green; Music by Kurt Weill; A Legend of American Life
by A. Callen, M. Worthington, and I. Reuben
by Oliver Haserodt
by Marc Blitzstein
by John Hunter Booth; An American Chronicle
by John Hunter Booth; An American Chronicle
by Joaquin Miller
by Arnold Sundgaard; A History
by George Foss
by Grant Moss
by Benn W. Levy; A Religious Comedy
by Don Farran and Ruth Stewart; A Living Newspaper Play
by Elizabeth McFadden
by Charlotte Kohler
by Arthur Arent; Th First "Living Newspaper"; from Educational Theatre Journal, v. 10, # 1; Introduction by Dan Isaac
by Will T. Goodwin; Working Script
by Emmet Lavery; "This book is a postscript to the history of Federal Theatre as recorded by Hallie Flanagan in Arena, published in December, 1940 by Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York. It carries on where Arena leaves off and should, consequently, be read as a companion volume to Mrs. Flanagan's book."
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
by Theodore Browne; Based on the Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
by Ridgely Torrence; A Play for the Negro Theatre
by Howard Koch; A Comedy of Recent Times
by Anna Friedman; A Roosevelt Play
by Gertrude Worthington Jeffries
by Abram Hill
by Paul Green
by Maria M. Coxe
by the Editorial Staff of the Living Newspaper
by the Editorial Staff of the Living Newspaper
by the Editorial Staff of the Living Newspaper
by Noah Elstein
by John C. Moffitt and Sinclair Lewis; From the novel by Sinclair Lewis
by John C. Moffitt and Sinclair Lewis; From the novel by Sinclair Lewis
by John C. Moffitt and Sinclair Lewis; From the novel by Sinclair Lewis
by John C. Moffitt and Sinclair Lewis; From the novel by Sinclair Lewis; #1 Script
by John McGee
by H. L. Fishel
by H. L. Fishel
by Frank B. Wells; Tracking Down a Negro Legend, a Saga
by Warren Coleman; A Negro Comedy
by Warren Coleman; A Negro Comedy
The Living Newspaper Presents
The Living Newspaper Presents
by T. C. Robinson and Rena M. Vale
by T. C. Robinson and Rena M. Vale
by George Sklar
by C. B. Chorpenning
by Lawrence and Sylvia Martin
by Lawrence and Sylvia Martin
by Maud Wood Park
by Theodore Browne; An "African Version"
by William Shakespeare; arranged and staged by Orson Welles; Complete Working Script
by William Shakespeare; arranged and staged by Orson Welles; Complete Working Script
by Oscar Saul
A Pageant of the New Deal
by W. S. Gilbert; The Town of Titifu
by Plautus; translated by Clarence P. Bill
by Hans Chlumberg
by Ramon Romero; An Historical Play
by Muriel Fox, Marie Reed, Suzette Telenga, and Jane Whitbread; A Musical Satire
by Theodore Brown; Based on the Legend of John Henry
by students of Commonwealth College; Commonwealth College Fortnightly
by Harold Igo.
by Arthur Arent; A Living Newspsper about Housing
by Grace H. Swift; A Pageant
by Hughes Allison
adapted by Yasha Frank
by Robert Russell
Living Newspaper
by Robert Whitehand
by Albert Maltz; Anti-Fascist Play
by John Howard Lawson
by Friedrich Wolf
by Claudia Hatch
by Robert Sturgis
by P. Washington Porter; A Tragedy of Negro Life
by Richard Oliver; A Living Newspaper Play
by Margaret Lesueur and Momodu Johnson; a Drama of Native Africa
by Hall Johnson; Across the River
by Hall Johnson; Across the River
Living Newspaper
by Upton Sinclair; A Little Play for the White Collar Folks
by Christobel Morley Cordell
by Phyllis Clare Flannery; A Farce Satire
Dramatist Guild Contest Play #60
by George Savage
by Florence Clothier; A Play of the Labrador Coast
by Oliver Goldsmith; The Mistakes of a Night
by Fall River
by Janet Hartman and Hallie Flanagan
by Jo Basshe
Joseph Lawrence; A Comedy
by Grace Welsh Lutgen
by Eugene Deaderick, Cyrilla P. Lindner, Max Mansbach, Lorin Raker; A Living Newspaper
by Arnold Sundgaard; A History
by Robert Ardrey; A Comedy
by Ward Courtney; a Living Newspaper Play
by Ward Courtney; a Living Newspaper Play
by Ward Courtney; a Living Newspaper Play
by Countee Cullen and Arna Bontempa
by Otis Chatfield-Taylor
by Shotwell Callvert; a Musical Drama
by Shotwell Callvert; a Musical Drama
by David Pinsky; A Grotesque Comedy
by William dorsey Blake; A Living Newspaper Play
by Florine Schwartz; A Play for Children
by Anna M. Lutkenhaus
by Arthur A. Miller
by Arthur A. Miller
by Arthur A. Miller
by Gertrude Tonkonogy
by Myrtly Mary Moss and Burke Ormsby; A play on deforestation and reforestation
by marie Baumer; from the novel by Leane Zugsmith
by John Broome
by Robinson Jeffers; A Play in Poetic Form
by george Murray and David Pelts; A Living Newspaper on Pensions
by Jules Eckert Goodman
by Hughes Allison
by Ward Courtney; The Moon is Steel; Carnival for Bolt; North
Based on homer and Euripides
by Eleanor Phelps
by Langston Hughes
by J. A. Smith and P. Morell; A folk drama of the Florida Pine woods
Life Among the Lowly
by Eden White; A Rollicking Comedy
Play Reader Report
Living Newspaper
Living Newspaper
by Frances Gordon Strunsky
translated from the Yiddish by Julius Schmerler and Isidore Edelman
by Elmer Rice
by Clemence Dane
by Samuel Jesse Warshawsky
by Molly Day Thacher
by maxine Schiel; Mystery Dramas
by John Fleming; Mystery Dramas
by John Fleming; Mystery Dramas
by John Fleming; Mystery Dramas
by Jack Barefield; Mystery Dramas
by Oscar Wilde; adapted by Donald Macfarlane; Oscar Wilde Cycle
by Hendrik Ibsen; adapted by Harry Goldsmith; Ibsen Cycle
by Hendrik Ibsen; Ibsen Cycle
by Oscar Wilde; adapted by Donald Macfarlane; Oscar Wilde Cycle
by Henrik Ibsen; adapted by Harry Goldsmith; Ibsen Cycle
by Georgia Backus; Mystery Dramas
by Henrik Ibsen; adapted by Donald Macfarlane; Ibsen Cycle
by Maxine Schiel; Mystery Dramas
by Howard Koch; adapted by Lawrence Levey; Federal Theatre of the Air
by Ben Hawthorne; Mystery Dramas
by John Fleming; Mystery Dramas
by Henrik Ibsen; adapted by Charles Crumpton; Ibsen Cycle
adapted by Lewis W. Moyer; Oscar Wilde Cycle
Audition Program
by Benet Costa
by Henrik Ibsen; adapted by Georgia Fawcett; Ibsen Cycle
by Leo Fontaine; A Radio Series