Operated between 1935–1939, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first presidential term, the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was an effort by the government, within the larger context of New Deal social programs, to provide viable, salaried opportunities for out-of-work theater professionals. The Works Progress Administration selected Hallie Flanagan, a multi-talented author, playwright, director, and producer, to lead the program. Her stated mission was plain and ambitious: “The primary aim of the Federal Theatre Project,” she wrote, “is the reemployment of theatre workers now on public relief rolls: actors, directors, playwrights, designers, vaudeville artists, stage technicians, and other workers in the theatre field. The far reaching purpose is the establishment of theatres so vital to community life that they will continue to function after the program of this Federal Project is completed.”
Under Flanagan’s guidance, the FTP produced and performed classical theater as well as experimental productions in a network of regional venues across the nation, expanding access to theater for everyday Americans at a time when entertainment was welcome and needed. A majority of the shows were presented either free of charge or for token admission, the purpose of the program being to employ people rather than to generate ticket income.
FTP productions ran the gamut. The program staged Moliere, Ibsen, Shaw, and Shakespeare, sure, but they also presented circus and vaudeville shows; programmed multicultural productions based on Cuban, Spanish, German, and Yiddish content; and formed seventeen “Negro Units” dedicated to advancing Black theater. The programming was both progressive and experimental—in addition to original works, NTP theatres presented a swing version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado as well as a Harlem production of the so-called “Voodoo Macbeth,” an adaptation by Orson Welles that engaged an all-Black cast to perform Shakespeare’s play in a fictional Caribbean setting modeled on Haiti. (In addition to the theatrical work, the FTP also employed photographers to document the productions, meaning that we have access today to thousands of behind-the-scenes images.)
So-called Living Newspaper plays were among the most popular of the NTP offerings. Scripted from the front pages, these productions employed an honest-to-goodness editorial staff to scour the news and turn current events into dramatic entertainment, typically interpreted through a progressive lens. Part drama, part protest, part educational endeavors, these plays brought Depression-era social, political, and economic concerns to life, turning social activism into pro-government reality drama. Productions often featured flashy technologies like motion pictures, live stunts, or lantern slides, with an omniscient narrator guiding an “everyman” character through the perils and benefits of modern life, like Christmas ghosts dragging Ebenezer Scrooge through the consequences of his life choices.