Federal Theatre Project playscript and radioscript collection

Access and use

Location of collection:: George Mason University

2400 Fenwick Library

Special Collections Research Center

Fenwick Library MS2FL

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030

Contact for questions and access:: POC: Mieko Palazzo

Email: speccoll@gmu.edu

Phone: (703) 993-2220

Fax: (703) 993-2669

Web: scrc.gmu.edu

Restrictions:: Collection is open to research.
Terms of access:: There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:: Federal Theatre Project playscript and radioscript collection, Collection #C0002, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University.

Summary

Creator:: Federal Theatre Project
Abstract:: 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.
Language:: English
Preferred citation:: Federal Theatre Project playscript and radioscript collection, Collection #C0002, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

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 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

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 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 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 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 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; #1 Script

by John McGee

by H. L. Fishel

by Frank B. Wells; Tracking Down a Negro Legend, a Saga

by Warren Coleman; A Negro Comedy

The Living Newspaper Presents

by T. C. Robinson and Rena M. Vale

by George Sklar

by C. B. Chorpenning

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 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

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 Countee Cullen and Arna Bontempa

by Otis Chatfield-Taylor

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 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

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 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

Biographical / historical:

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.

Acquisition information:

Donated by the Federal Theatre Project.

Processing information:

Processed by Special Collections and Archives staff.

Arrangement:

Organized alphabetically.

Physical description:

36 linear ft.

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Theater--United States--History--20th century.

Collection