Hallie Flanagan (in the image accompanying this post) undoubtedly wondered how she would balance employing thousands of out-of-work theater professionals and creating a vibrant national theater as she was sworn in as head of the Federal Theatre Project. It’s doubtful, however, that she expected that this new agency within the Works Progress Administration would become an early battleground over governmental funding for the arts, in a foreshadowing of the culture wars late in the 20th century.
The site of Ms. Flanagan’s swearing-in on August 27, 1935 must have seemed symbolic to her and all those who shared her hope of making theater a vital part of every corner of America: the University of Iowa, deep in the heartland of America, where the cornerstone was being laid for a new theater. She shared with playwright Elmer Rice, who had submitted a plan for the New Deal’s theater project, the vision of a decentralized theater, one that would be not a museum piece but taking its cue from the current times.
When it was all over four years later, Ms. Flanagan—who had taken leave from Vassar, where she had become a school legend for establishing a daring experimental theater—could look back with pride on the fact that the Federal Theatre Project had put to work approximately 10,000 theater professionals; that many of them had had their self-respect restored by being taken off the welfare rolls; and that at least 12 million people had attended performances by the numerous companies connected with the agency.
Yet this visionary woman, already at a handicap because she was, by her own admission, “totally lacking in administrative experience,” also felt frustrated about running interference between those like WPA head (and Franklin Roosevelt confidante Harry Hopkins) who wanted to provide “free, adult, uncensored theater,” and conservative critics who picked up on well-publicized examples of agitprop drama that were not necessarily representative of the agency.
This ideological clash was probably best described by John Rhys Moore, who, in a Kenyon Review article from 1968, explained how reaction set in:
The site of Ms. Flanagan’s swearing-in on August 27, 1935 must have seemed symbolic to her and all those who shared her hope of making theater a vital part of every corner of America: the University of Iowa, deep in the heartland of America, where the cornerstone was being laid for a new theater. She shared with playwright Elmer Rice, who had submitted a plan for the New Deal’s theater project, the vision of a decentralized theater, one that would be not a museum piece but taking its cue from the current times.
When it was all over four years later, Ms. Flanagan—who had taken leave from Vassar, where she had become a school legend for establishing a daring experimental theater—could look back with pride on the fact that the Federal Theatre Project had put to work approximately 10,000 theater professionals; that many of them had had their self-respect restored by being taken off the welfare rolls; and that at least 12 million people had attended performances by the numerous companies connected with the agency.
Yet this visionary woman, already at a handicap because she was, by her own admission, “totally lacking in administrative experience,” also felt frustrated about running interference between those like WPA head (and Franklin Roosevelt confidante Harry Hopkins) who wanted to provide “free, adult, uncensored theater,” and conservative critics who picked up on well-publicized examples of agitprop drama that were not necessarily representative of the agency.
This ideological clash was probably best described by John Rhys Moore, who, in a Kenyon Review article from 1968, explained how reaction set in:
“The depression created a sense of fraternity and common purpose among people who had never known such feelings, but it also sharpened distrust and hostility. New political alignments appeared with bewildering rapidity as angry saviors fell out among themselves.”
One play that particularly raised the hackles of conservatives was Marc Blitzstein’s musical The Cradle Will Rock. Its pro-labor, even frankly left-wing sentiments gave hives to timorous bureaucrats terrified of the right wing. It was a triumph for producer John Houseman and his boy-wonder director-partner, Orson Welles—just as their “voodoo Macbeth” had been—but exacted a price: one year after its premiere, Congress--with many members annoyed at the thought of funding attacks on capitalism, by this and other plays mounted by the FTP--drove a stake through the program’s heart, in an early example of "defunding the left."
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