#5 The Rise of an American Theatre
Think: The Big Questions
For scripts that are considered too avant-garde, controversial, and/or of limited interest and, therefore, not lucrative, are there ways to be read, published, and, hopefully, produced?
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Why did the Harlem Renaissance develop outside the mainstream? To what degree does assimilation help or hinder marginalized voices?
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Why did the Federal Theatre Project develop? Do we need federally funded arts programs today?
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Why did theatre unions develop? Do we still need them today?
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Watch
QUIZ (No textbook reading this week.)
In the early 20th century United States, big melodramatic productions were on Broadway, and everywhere across the country. Which inevitably led to an Avant-Garde backlash. An interesting part of the backlash was Little Theater, a movement that embraced smaller, more emotional, and less profitable forms of drama. One of Little Theater's most notable practitioners, Eugene O'Neill changed the theatrical landscape with groundbreaking plays like The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night.
In the 1920s, there was a blossoming of all kinds of art made by African Americans in the New York neighborhood Harlem. Let's call it a renaissance. While all the arts were having a great run, some extremely interesting things were happening in the theater. Writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were writing plays, and black theater companies were drawing larger audiences than ever before.
The 1930s in the United States were pretty bad for employment in all industries, and the theater was no exception. As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, the Works Progress Administration created a division called the Federal Theatre Project. The agency created theater companies across the country to put actors and crew back to work in the theater industry. The shows were free, and thanks to forward thinking administrators, a lot of them were pretty interesting. You'll also learn about the Group Theater today.
We're going to Broadway, everybody, and it's not going to be that fun. In fact, it's going to be a very serious experience with lots of powerful social commentary and indictments of life in America in the 1950s. So be prepared to look at the works of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Lorraine Hansberry, and to look into the face of chronic illness, racism, and the crushing malaise of American middle class life. Woof.
Know: Vocabulary
Actors Studio
Arthur Miller
Combination company
Diaspora
Double consciousness
Federal Theatre Project
Gertrude Stein
Great Migration
Group Theatre
Harold Clurman
Independent Theatres
Langston Hughes
Living newspapers
Lorraine Hansberry
Monopoly
Negro Theatre Unit
Prose
Schubert Organization
Star system
Stella Adler
Subscription
Syndicate
Tennessee Williams
Theatrical Syndicate
Vernacular
Verse
Lecture Slides
Sample Plays
Long Day's Journey into Night
by Eugene O'Neill
Realism (1941/1956)
Shuffle Along
by Eubie Blake & Noble Sissle
Musical (1921)
Power
by Arthur Arent
Living Newspaper (1938)
Performance (Then)
This 1929 musical, shot in an early Technicolor process, is a mostly lost film. Only incomplete copies of the final two reels, plus the complete Vitaphone soundtrack, still exist. What does remain gives us a tantalizing glimpse at what was surely an extraordinary example of early sound cinema!
Almost everything has been forgotten about "Shuffle Along," the 1921 Broadway musical written, performed and directed by African Americans. But the production was hugely influential, altering the evolution of the art form. Now there's a new "Shuffle Along," a new musical about the original, starring Audra McDonald and choreography by Savion Glover.
Newsreel of Orson Welles' all-black adaptation of Macbeth. Produced by the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration
Part I: Actors Equity, Government Funding
Actors Equity Website with "Do Not Work"
Actors Equity and The Public Theatre (Article)
Part II: Samples of Writing and Staging
Eugene O'Neill: Read Excerpt: Long Day
Gertrude Stein: Read Excerpt (Below)
Modern Productions of Four Saints (Below)
Then on Film
The Harlem Renaissance
The Federal Theatre Project
Broadway in the 1920s
NYC, Broadway & Actors Equity
