Difference Between Wpa Federal Arts Project and Pwap Public Works of Art Project
Congress created the Federal Theatre Projection in 1935 to provide work for theater professionals during the Bully Depression. The Project was funded under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and directed on the national level by Vassar Higher drama professor Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969). Seattle initially sponsored three Units: the Federal Players (a white unit of measurement), the Negro Repertory Visitor (an African-American unit), and Diverseness/Vaudeville. In 1937 a Children's Theatre unit was created. Prominently involved in the leadership were University of Washington Drama professor Glenn Hughes (1894-1964) and Burton James (1888-1951) and Florence James (1892-1988) of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse. The United States Congress abruptly disbanded the Federal Theatre Project on June thirty, 1939, amid cries of censorship from performers and accusations of communist infiltration from both within and without the organization.
Live Theater Across America
The Federal Theatre Projection was the abstraction of WPA Director Harry Hopkins, and at its height employed some 13,000 people in 31 states. In the Pacific Northwest, drama professor Glenn Hughes served as the initial Regional Counselor, Guy Williams as Washington State Manager, and George T. Hood as Washington Land Supervisor. Washington land'due south Federal Theatre Projection employed nearly 100 people, whose work in turn impacted thousands of Washington audience members.
National Director Hallie Flanagan envisioned the FTP non only every bit piece of work-assistance to technicians and performers, but likewise as an opportunity to seed the nation with a vast network of theaters and to betrayal many Americans to live theater for the start fourth dimension. Performances were complimentary, or nearly then. Plays (vaudeville, puppetry, children'due south theater and dramatic productions) were often laced with social commentary. The FTP created Living Newspapers, simple but powerful dramatizations of current events. Seattle, forth with other major cities, sponsored racially segregated African American troops known every bit Negro Units. Productions were not confined to urban centers but opened in numerous towns, sometimes simultaneously. They were produced locally and employed local actors, directors, and technicians.
In gild for a metropolis to host a Federal Theatre Project unit of measurement, a sponsor had to volunteer to organize and oversee that unit of measurement. In many cities, existing theaters served every bit sponsors. In Seattle Florence James and Burton James, directors of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse, sponsored the Negro Repertory Visitor. Regional Representative Glenn Hughes sponsored Seattle'due south (white) dramatic and vaudeville units.
In social club to authorize for Federal Theatre Projection employment, a person had to prove previous employment in the theatrical field and be on relief (out of work and receiving government assistance). A 10 percent leeway to this policy permitted units to be professionally directed and supervised, and it was thus that the Jameses and Glenn Hughes were able to serve as organizers for Washington land. Hughes'south piece of work at the University of Washington and the James's work at the Seattle Repertory Playhouse had already created an interested Seattle audience that would support Theatre Project productions.
Directors constitute that administering a project on the government dole meant cooperating with the land WPA offices and coping with the omnipresent government red tape. All Theatre Project paperwork had to be filed in triplicate. In this age before the Xerox motorcar, documents were typed on a typewriter. To make copies additional sheets separated by carbon newspaper were inserted behind the canvas being typed on. One re-create of every document went to the national office in Washington, D.C. All project proposals for whatsoever production of whatever kind had to exist submitted in sextuplicate.
Glenn Hughes'southward well-nigh enduring contribution to the Federal Theatre Project was the creation of a series of 12 wooden models of historic theaters. Carved by skilled woodcarvers, they were accurately scaled models of the Theater at Delphi, the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, a Japanese Noh theater, a Japanese Kabuki theater, and a Roman Lyric theater, amid others. As the models were nearing completion there was talk of shipping them to Washington D.C. for display in the Library of Congress. Hughes had intended them to remain at the University of Washington and responded angrily, stating that they were non built in such a way that they could exist shipped without damage. The models remain at the University of Washington. They were refurbished in the early 1980s under the direction of UW Drama professor Jack Wolcott, and were on display in the entrance hall of Meany Hall for a number of years thereafter. They are currently (2002) in a University of Washington storage facility.
African American Theater
The Negro Repertory Company was the most active unit of Seattle'due south Federal Theatre Project and produced some of the most innovative and controversial theater. Historian Rena Fraden states that Seattle'south Negro unit mounted "some of the most experimental of productions of any Negro unit," (Fraden, 177), and was considered past many to be the most interesting part of Seattle'south Federal Theatre Projection. The NRC'due south first product was Noah, a whimsical gospel chorus musical which opened on April 28, 1936. This was followed by Stevedore, a Marxist-themed piece of social realism concerning a blackness spousal relationship organizer unjustly accused of raping a white woman. The bandage was interracial. Audiences responded strongly, even spontaneously ascension up and surging onstage to join the cast for the climactic finale at one of the performances.
In June 1937, Burton and Florence James resigned from the Federal Theatre Project in protest over the outcry in the press concerning their production of Power. Power was a Living Newspaper advocating public ownership of utilities, a controversial idea at that fourth dimension. The prove sold out to huge audiences, only both Seattle newspapers denounced it. The furor over Power was the turning point for Seattle'due south FTP. It marked a change from vibrant social realism to safer, less volatile subject area thing.
Later Florence and Burton James resigned, the Negro Repertory Theatre was housed along with other Seattle Theatre Project units in the one-time Royal Theatre motion picture firm at 1319-23 Rainier Artery. (In 2002 the location is an underpass of I-90.)
The Variety/Vaudeville unit toured extensively throughout the land of Washington. Using a vaudeville-type format featuring a series of specialty acts and comedians, the Project performed the CCC Review at many of Washington's 48 Noncombatant Conservation Corps camps.
Touring to CCC camps was complicated past CCC regulations that prohibited females from sleeping at CCC camps nether whatsoever circumstances. (The Noncombatant Conservation Corps comprised men in their tardily teens, nether the supervision of the U.S. Army and with the Army exercising quasi-parental control over the boys' morals.) Touring male actors could bunk at the CCC camps, simply the women in the company had to exist housed with various families, sometimes at an inconvenient distance from their colleagues, since CCC camps were in rural areas. Despite the logistical headaches, the tours boosted CCC camp morale and furthered the goal of exposing a wide audience to live theater.
In the autumn of 1937, Hallie Flanagan visited Seattle and was dismayed to find the Project'south activities profoundly reduced in the wake of the James's resignation. She too felt that Glenn Hughes, whose association with the Project had been strongest in its initial stages, was too preoccupied with his duties at the University of Washington to focus on the Federal Theatre Project. George Hood, former managing director of the Metropolitan Theatre, was serving as FTP Washington Land Manager. Flanagan brought Edwin O'Connor up from the Los Angeles unit of measurement and imported her Vassar College friend Esther Porter Lane to create a children's theater unit.
Lane'due south arrival boosted morale. According to biographer Joanne Bentley, "Using the vaudeville group, she started a theatre for children that was well received. 1 vaudevillian she rehabilitated had been a skilled roper. 'He had but performed in burlesque halls,' she recalled, 'and so all he knew too rope tricks was how to tell filthy jokes.' Esther taught him to substitute nursery rhymes for the jokes. 'It took ages to teach him, but he did learn. He recited while he roped'" (Bentley, 282). The Mother Goose/Vaudeville piece was called Mother Goose Goes to Town. Information technology was followed past Mother Goose on the Loose These productions toured Seattle surface area parks. Children came, literally, by the truckload.
I Tertiary of a Nation
On May 23, 1938, Seattle staged what is now remembered equally the Federal Theatre Projection'due south best-known drama, One Third of a Nation. The title refers to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 2d countdown address, delivered on January 20, 1937, in which he stated "I see i-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad and ill-nourished." Written by Arthur Arent, the play examined the history of slum atmospheric condition in large cities and spotlighted the need for housing reform. In Seattle, as elsewhere, the product was customized to be site-specific.
Wary of the vitriol evoked by Ability, however, manager Esther Porter Lane treaded cautiously. "We plant what so many projects plant. You go and photo (slum) properties in the customs and then you lot detect that the most powerful church building in boondocks owns information technology … All these dirty, cruddy garbage dumps are owned by people whose names you tin can't mention" (quoted in Bentley, 272). The show ended with an onstage conflagration of the towering tenement set. The play ran for nine weeks at the newly christened Federal Theatre at Rainier Artery and Atlantic Street. "Seldom has any play so defenseless the public fancy," stated the review in The Seattle Times (quoted in Flanagan, 309).
On Feb 13, 1939, the Seattle FTP opened Arthur Sundgaarde's Spirochete, a Living Newspaper about the history of syphilis. Spirochete Treponema pallidum is the name of the corkscrew-shaped bacteria that causes the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. The production ran for two months, and was sponsored by the Washington State Lath of Health, the Washington Medical Clan, the King County Medical Clan, the Seattle and Rex County Health Departments, and the Federated Women's Clubs. At the fourth dimension syphilis was incurable. "Approximately 35,000 handbills were distributed throughout the urban center -- many through doctors' offices and hospitals -- which stressed that this was not a show for 'the prurient nor the prude'" (Witham, 89). The disease was so greatly feared and taboo-laden that many audition members had never heard the word "syphilis" spoken in public. Spirochete was the Seattle FTP's greatest financial and attendance success.
The Anti-Art Un-American Activities Commission
In May 1938, Congress convened the House Commission on United nations-American Activities. The committee targeted for investigation first the Works Progress Administration (WPA) overall, and before long the Federal Theatre Project specifically. Texas conservative Democrat Martin Dies (1900-1972) spearheaded the committee. Hallie Flanagan's graphic symbol and motives were attacked both past the Dies commission and by disgruntled Project members called equally witnesses. Federal Theatre Project productions were branded as propaganda for Communism. Flanagan responded that they were in fact propaganda for republic since they utilized constitutional freedoms to indicate out America'due south virtually pressing problems (Bentley). Against a groundwork of Hitler's march on Europe, Congress slashed relief funding as America's focus turned toward state of war.
As Seattle project members joined hundreds of citizens of Vancouver, Washington, on the banks of the Columbia River to present Flotilla of Faith, a historic reenactment of the starting time crossing by whites of the dandy river, Congress was sounding the Federal Theatre Project's decease knell.
The Seattle Unit spent early on June preparing a new Northwest-specific Living Paper production chosen Timber. The piece, written past Seattle Projection members Burke Ormsby and Mary Myrtle, tells the story of the rapid refuse of America'south timber acreage and the pioneers who "grabbed all they could get and the devil take the hindmost" (Flanagan, 310). The public never saw this play: On June xxx, 1939, all Federal Theatre Project workers nationwide were issued pink slips. The Projection was officially and abruptly disbanded.
In Washington state, every bit elsewhere, actors, technicians, directors, designers, costumers, ticket sellers, and vaudevillians all melted dorsum into the fabric of society, each seeking a living without federal assist. When the Federal Theatre Project closed, 8,000 people across the state lost their paycheck, 87 of them in the state of Washington. Seattle's FTP units had mounted 51 full productions for a total of 885 performances , likewise equally touring vaudeville and puppet shows.
Theater professionals from around the country protested the demise of the Federal Theatre Project. Despite the furor over Communist infiltration, in the end it was not anticommunism that felled the Projection, merely the view in Congress that the average American saw no value in spending tax dollars to aid performers and encourage the arts. Federal funding for the arts was controversial, although the budget for the Projection amounted to less than 1 percentage of the WPA's total allocation. Hallie Flanagan's stepdaughter, Joanne Bentley, quotes an unnamed congressman at the time the Project was close down: "Civilization! What the Hell---Let 'em take a pick and shovel" (Bentley, 340).
Affiche for Federal Theatre Project production of Androcles And The Panthera leo, November 1937
Courtesy Free, Adult, Uncensored
Hallie Flanagan, 1937-1939, ca. 1935
Courtesy Library of Congress (ppmsca.03004)
Glenn Hughes (1894-1964)
Courtesy UW Schoolhouse of Drama
Burton James (1888-1951), ca. 1925
Photo past Wayne Albee, Courtesy Puget Sounds: A Nostalgic Review of Radio and Boob tube in the Great Northwest
Florence James leaping to her feet during the Canwell hearings, calling witness George Hewitt a liar and a perjurer, Seattle, 1948
Courtesy MOHAI
Poster for Seattle Federal Theatre Project production of One Third Of A Nation, May 1938
Courtesy Free, Adult, Uncensored
Blanche Morgan Losey, original stage set up design for WPA Federal Theatre Project production of One Third of a Nation, Seattle, 1938
Courtesy Martin-Zambito Fine art, Seattle
Sources:
Hallie Flanagan, Arena (NewYork: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1940); Joanne Bentley, Hallie Flanagan: A Life in the American Theatre (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988); Jane DeHart Matthews, The Federal Theatre: Circa 1935-1939: Plays, Relief, and Politics (New York: Octagon Books, 1980); Free, Adult, Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project ed. past John O'Connor and Lorraine Chocolate-brown (Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978); Milton Meltzer, Violins and Shovels: the WPA Arts Projects, a New Deal for America's Hungry Artists of the 1930s (New York: Delacorte Press, 1976); George Kazacoff, Dangerous Theatre: The Federal Theatre Project Every bit A Forum For New Plays (New York: Peter Lang, 1989); Rena Fraden, Blueprint For A Black Federal Theatre 1935-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); "WPA Posters" Library of Congress American Memory site (www.memory.loc.gov/); www.lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp; www.newdeal.feri.org/power/alphabetize.htm; Dale Carter. "Showplace: Theatres of Puget Audio -- Seattle, Tacoma and Everett," Marquee, The Journal of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001); Quintard Taylor, The Forging Of A Black Community: Seattle's Primal District From 1870 Through The Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994); Staff of the Fenwick Library, George Stonemason University, The Federal Theatre Project: A Catalog-Calander Of Productions (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Printing, 1986); (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5105); Nancy Wick, "Playing With History: The Revival of a 1936 Black Drama ... Fulfills the Dream of I Determined UW Director," Columns(www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec95/stevedore.html); Kathryn Hamilton-Wang and Shirley Dallas at the Washington Country Library (for information regarding WPA Washington Country Administrators); Evamarii Alexandria Johnson, A Product History Of The Seattle Federal Theatre Project Negro Repertory Company, 1935-1939 Seattle: University of Washington Ph.D. Thesis, 1981; Paula Becker interview with Seattle FTP scholar Barry Witham, October 1, 2002; Barry B. Witham, "Pandemic and Popular Opinion: Spirochete in Seattle," Journal of American Drama and Theatre Vol. 5, No. 2 (Bound, 1993), pp. 86-95.
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