The People’s Stage

Jordan Ealey: Buffalo, Salem, Oklahoma—these are not normally places that you would associate with African American cultural expression.

Leticia Ridley: Welcome to Daughters of Lorraine, a podcast from your friendly neighborhood Black feminists exploring the legacies, present, and futures of Black theatre. We are your hosts, Leticia Ridley...

Jordan: And Jordan Ealey. This is a podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. And on it we discuss Black theatre history; conduct interviews with local, national, and international Black theatre artists, scholars, and practitioners; and discuss plays by Black playwrights that have our minds buzzing.

Leticia: In 1935, the Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal program established as part of the Works Progress Administration. The project's initial phase was funded by a $27 million allocation for employing artists, writers, and musicians led by theatre professor, Hallie Flanagan. The program underwrote funds for productions across the country, many of which were provided free of charge.

Jordan: Of significance to Black theatre history was the creation of seven “Negro Theatre Units,” as they were called, which helped to employ Black artists. Popular productions such as the Orson Welles-directed Voodoo Macbeth, and the Shirley Graham-produced [The] Swing Mikado were just some of the creative works to emerge from this groundbreaking program. Buoyed by the current [climate on] arts funding from the Trump administration, today's episode is dedicated to discussing the short life of the Federal Theatre Project and its impact on the growth and expansion of Black theatre.

Leticia: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Daughters of Lorraine. Leticia and Jordan checking in with a Black theatre history episode. And today we are going to reflect about arts programming, funding, and the government. And specifically what we're going to be chatting about today is the Federal Theatre Project and its specific impact on Black theatre and what we know about the relationship with government and arts funding.

Jordan: Which in the United States is relatively short.

Leticia: Right, right. It's kind of sad, isn't it? It is really sad. Let me tell you one thing about not—

Jordan: I should not be laughing.

Leticia: One thing about not being employed in the US anymore and living outside of the US and learning more about the funding structure of Canada, which I'm sure some Canadians have their qualms about, is that there's just way more funding for research and arts programs than the US. I guess the US had their private programs and such, but even something like the Ford Foundation has cut all their funding for humanities work.

Jordan: And that was even prior to the Trump administration, I want to say.

Leticia: Yeah. And I will say that doing the research for this particular episode as someone who knew about the Federal Theatre Project, but was not as informed as I am now in preparing for the episode, is I didn't realize how much of a shot in the arm theatre got by the Federal Theatre Project. But also specifically Black theatre and some of the works that sort of came out of that and some of the really anti-racist vision of Halle Flanagan and specifically the Federal Theatre Project. So I will say that I am humbly optimistic that maybe we may end up into a place where we're going to have to have a Federal Theatre Project too, but I don't know if we're in the same place as the Great Depression where that will be the outcome or that will be the decision made to put arts funding in place.

And I think what's particularly interesting, and we mentioned this in the episode preview, is that this particular program, the Federal Theatre Project, which was a program from 1935 to 1939, established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States, was also an employment program. So it was about getting artists, technicians, or people working in the arts field back to work. And while we are only focused on the segment of theatre, there [were] five federal projects that were a part of or centered on the arts field in general, right? So I think that's really important that we situate this not only as we want people and the public to see art, but that it was situating artists as workers and work that was important to the world and culture so much so as other professions. And I think that's a very important direction to sort of think about this in.

Jordan: Yeah, and like you said, even though we're only focusing on theatre, I thought that something I found really interesting was how things like vaudeville and dance and other forms of creative expression were included in this large vision. So I don't know, I want to read the purpose that was drafted by Hallie Flanagan who we’ll get into more about who she is and her role in directing the project. But this is from her document, and I want to [say] too is that the Library of Congress has an amazing collection on the Federal Theatre Project and a lot of it can be accessed digitally. Shout out to the Library of Congress, we love you guys so much. I know I would not have been able to complete my dissertation and now my book without the work of the Library of Congress. So I love archivists and I love the Library of Congress.

So in that original proposal, Hallie Flanagan drafted the purpose of what this was. And like I said in the introduction, this was from the New Deal. And so the purpose of the project says, quote,

The primary aim of the Federal Theatre Project is the re-employment of theatre workers now on the relief roles, actors, directors, playwrights, designers, vaudeville artists, stage technicians, and other workers in the theatre field. The far-reaching purpose of theatres is so vital to community life that they will continue to function after the program of the federal project is completed,

end quote. So like you said, Leticia, this is really highlighting labor, the labor of arts, and looking at the arts world as an industry, I don't think that we even think about it that way too. We always say “the industry, the industry,” but we don't actually think about this as a structure and us that work are arts workers as being a part of an ecosystem that needs money and that we ourselves are laborers inside of it, right?

Not to get too Marxist about it, but we are. And sometimes I do think that is... I mean, obviously let me not go too far into Marx, so I don't want nobody to come from me, but it's like that piece that we... I know that Marx is all about the alienation of the worker from their work as being part of the issue of capitalism. But I think there's a different issue in arts industries is that we're so much taught to think about it as a passion, as something as a life of the mind, a life of the heart of the soul. And we aren't actually trained to think about it as a job or as a part of labor. And so when we have things like now the issues of funding, how so many people are now striking, union stuff, all of that comes to a shock to people because they're like, "Aren't you just happy to be here?" And so it's interesting, looking into the Federal Theatre project has made me start to really think about the work of art, the actual work.

Leticia: Right. And if we just even look at that statement, but also some of the sort of pillars of the Federal Theatre Project, it was establishing arts as, like you said, labor on par with something like the business and agriculture field. And I think what's interesting about the sort of industry and the labor point is that who Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, who was the WPA director, decided to put in place as the national director of the Federal Theatre Project. And from research there seemed to be a little bit of back and forth, or at least a push of folks wanting the Federal Theatre Project's director to be someone who worked commercially in commercial theatre. And Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins were adamant that it actually be someone not in the commercial space in order for the program to be successful.

And I think that was critically important to the success and the direction and the vision of the Federal Theatre Project in so much that it wasn't really actually about turning a profit in a way that I think if the director was someone who wasn't a professor who hadn't sort of studied and researched the theatre industry in that way, we may have gotten a very different Federal Theatre Project as we know it. And I don't even know if there would have been a focus on the sort of diversities of theatre cultures and a focus on Black theatre specifically, right? I think that having Hallie Flanagan lead and shape the Federal Theatre Project really allowed for different types of voices to be represented, experimentation and form, and the sort of undercutting of profit as the primary goal of arts and culture or that being the barometer in which would measure if the program itself was successful.

Jordan: Right, exactly. And I think too, I just loved knowing that she was a professor. I mean, obviously it's because we're professors, so we're like, "Look at us." But in another way, I also don't think that both the theatre industry and academia in theatre are also not thinking of each other as being part of the same ecosystem. It's like girl, those actors, playwrights, directors, producers that end up doing all that work, most of them, where are they coming from? Spaces being educated by folks who are invested in giving them the tools they need to go out into what this industry is, or even to come back into academia as well. So I feel like there needs to also be a bigger conversation there. So yeah, Hallie Flanagan was appointed as the national director, had known Harry Hopkins for some time, who was part of, like you said, the WPA and bringing this project to fruition.

And so with the establishment of Flanagan, Professor Flanagan, in this role, we then get this vision for what are called the Negro Units. And I also want to point out another name. While Hallie Flanagan was absolutely instrumental in directing the project and had this vision, she would not have been able to execute that vision without someone named Rose McClendon. And so Rose McClendon was a leading actress at the time, African American actress, and she was a part of establishing the Negro units, specifically, I think she did a lot of direct work with the Lafayette unit, which was the one in Harlem. But her vision, because she was one of the founding directors of the Negro People's Theater, which had already existed. And I'm like, "I need to look more into that." And that sort of became part of the inspiration for what would become the Negro units.

Leticia: Right. Yes. So the Federal Theatre established specific chapters dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the work of Black artists. And like you said, Jordan, the creation of the Negro Theater Units had several chapters across the country, of course, with its largest offers being in New York. Under that umbrella in New York, there was both the Lafayette Theater that was for all intents and purposes, a theatre that's establishing more well-known Black artists. Really public facing in the sense that we're putting on shows to be seen versus the Negro Youth Theatre, which was dedicated to the Harlem community and was really focused on developing a known theatre artist. So really much a predecessor to something like the Negro Ensemble Company. And I'm not situating them as the first, that this particular negro youth theatre was the first to sort of think about training folks who were interested, Black artists who were interested in entering the theatre field, but that it was really about developing talent, offering folks the opportunity to be able to learn, to hone a craft, and to have time to write and things like that. So as we know, New York has been the epicenter of theatre for a long time, and for the theatre project it was no different. But when we think about sort of widespread-ness of the Federal Theatre Project outside of New York, there were seventeen Negro theatre units across the United States, including in places like Hartford, Boston, Salem, Newark, Philadelphia, Raleigh, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Cleveland, Detroit, Peoria, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles. And then in 1936, there was additional units in San Francisco, Oklahoma, Camden, Buffalo, and Durham. So that just gives you—

Jordan: Whoa, Buffalo, that's like, that's in between us.

Leticia: Yeah, it just gives you quite the scope of it, the scope of the Federal Theatre Project, and specifically the investment in Black theatre in bigger markets, or what we would call bigger markets today in smaller places as well. So this was not just a New York-centered program, it was really thinking holistically across the United States where Black theatre was happening and how there could be programs created for both the training, but also the sort of expression and performance of Black theatre. So I think sometimes focusing on the Lafayette Theater, the Negro Youth Theatre, is that it comes siloed to think that it was only a New York specific program. And that's where most of the research lies. I think it's important to sort of illuminate the precedent that this was across the United States. And if we are looking for today that if there was a Federal Theatre Project 2.0 in our future, that I would hope that it would follow the sort of same investment across the US.

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. And also in places that you don't normally expect to think about Blackness and Black people, obviously the Chicagos, LA, the Atlantas, the Detroits, did I already say Chicago, I think I already said Chicago. But Buffalo, Salem, Oklahoma, these are not normally places that you would associate with African American cultural expression. I'd love to, for any folks out there who are interested in or doing research on the Federal Theatre Project, I'd love to hear about those smaller or lesser known, I would say units and the work that came out from them. So also within this kind of establishment of the Federal Theatre Project and the Negro Theatre units of the Federal Theatre Project, there's this vision of anti-racism that is attributed to Professor Flanagan, but it's also very much carried out by other folks who were instrumental in the project such as Rose McClendon, for example. And so she was not having it. She was not about to let the Federal Theatre Project not support Black artists and minority artists.

Leticia: Yeah, absolutely. She was very much calling out any theatre or theatre professional that was trying to act any racial prejudice. And this was in line with the policies of the WPA at large. But again, as we know, and history has taught us you can have rules, but if no one's going to actually enforce them, then is the rule really doing the thing that it's supposed to?

First you're trying to change people's minds, and if you can't change your minds, then you change the policy.

Jordan: I learned from doing some dramaturgy work. We were working with an anti-racist facilitator, and she said, "First you're trying to change people's minds, and if you can't change your minds, then you change the policy."

Leticia: Right. And the policy, Professor Flanagan, was very much like, "You see this, it's written down. You're in violation. You will no longer be employed by me." And just to give you an example of that, in one of the articles that assisted us in research for this particular episode noted that there was a white project manager who attempted to segregate Black actors and white technicians who were traveling to Dallas in a private railroad car. And of course the Black actors were like, "Wait a minute, the policy says that we ain't supposed to have this segregation thing operating here."

Flanagan heard of this, and the actors advocated and they demanded that this particular white project manager be fired. He was, and then the white assistant director of the entire vaudeville and circus program was removed from the project as well because he cited, he was unable to work with Black actors in his role. In the sense that Professor Flanagan was not playing about these rules, I think there's one thing to say about there being policies about anti-racism, as I mentioned. But the enforcement of it, Professor Flanagan was very much committed to creating a space where these Black artists could work and as much as she could control not under conditions of blatant racism.

Jordan: Yeah. And I think this also kind of extends this question of anti-racism also extended into play selection. It reminds me of when we talked about the NEC and how part of their first season, though they weren't necessarily offensive projects, but having white playwrights be a part of the first season of the NEC was a point of contention for a lot of Black community members and theatremakers, et cetera. A similar thing happened with the Federal Theatre Project in their Newark unit where there was a production of Octavius Ray Cohen's Come Seven, which essentially was kind of an Amos ‘n’ Andy farce situation that the Black community was like, "No way." The NAACP had to come in and lead this protest.

Leticia: And they do.

Jordan: And lead this protest against it being like, "Absolutely not." And the production was canceled. And getting into the idea that one, Black people are very conscientious theatregoers. Again, I feel like this podcast, our work as scholars and artists is always about, yes, about art, the creation of art itself, but also about the fact that Black people go to theatre, Black people like theatre, and Black people are invested and in tune with what's happening in theatre as well. And so this to me was an example of that where you're like, "We don't want to see what we feel is to be a stereotypical representation of African Americans." And we're actively protesting this production, which then led to the cancellation of it and replaced by other material that was a lot more complex and multifaceted representations of Black people. And these things that you're discussing or we're discussing here, Leticia, when pointing out the racist incident, but then also protesting the plays that led to other better plays.

One of our other sources, Rania Karoula, and I apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name, was very instructive in helping us do research for this as well. And she poses a series of really interesting questions that I'd like to read. So from her, quote,

The irony was that such an exposition not only happening, was under the auspices of a governmental institution that had no intention of dealing with or solving such a complicated social and cultural matter. It was also taking place with almost exclusively white men in charge of theatres, directing, casting, producing, and organizing the theatrical experience. At the same time, African Americans were fighting among themselves about what this new style or type of theatrical art that the FTB afforded them should look like. Should they follow Du Bois call for a Black theatre about, by, and for them, a theatre that would instruct, educate, and provide a platform for critically presenting racial issues based in their community? Or a new communal coalition of Black and white playwrights, directors, artists, actors, and audiences that would revolt against racial stereotypes and shift the cultural power paradigms toward a finally truly liberal society,

end quote. And I thought that these questions, that long quote that I just read, were really interesting because it harkens back to our episode that we did about, “What is Black Theatre?” and also our ongoing questions as artists and scholars around [the question of]: what is Black theatre? Because is the Negro unit of the Federal Theatre Project, would that be considered Black theatre? And what does it mean to have these interracial approach to theatremaking, but under the auspices of the Negro Unit, for example?

Leticia: Right. I think, like you said, it dates back to the age-old question, “what is Black theatre?” And I think of someone like Alice Childress who is very much about the integration of theatre and cross coalition, and I think there's a place for that. And quite honestly, Jordan, I don't know if I could even give you an answer to how I feel about it. It might change on the sort of context and situation. And I think to your quote as well that you read for us was also sort of thinking about what it meant for this to be a governmental supported program, even as the government itself was not necessarily making any big moves to sort of intervene in the sort of racism that many of these Black artists was experiencing. And I may be misallocating this a bit, but I feel like Hallie Flanagan's role as director really made the program much more anti-racist than it was possibly going to be if she wasn't in that role in that particular... even with the WPA, having their policies and rules and everything.

I do think that there is a contradiction that sits with the Federal Theatre Project that I don't even quite know how to parse out, right? And perhaps we go to someone like Fred Moten and Stefano Harney who's talking about “the undercommons” and the Federal Theatre Project being a space where Black artists had to work in the sort of undercommons of the theatre project in taking the resources and utilizing the resources for their own sort of purpose, which I think is complicated. It's complicated a lot, right? How do you be in the institution, but out of the institution? And I think that question is particularly potent today as we sort of see these targets on universities and who's bending the knee and who's not bending the knee. How do you situate yourself within times like this? How can you use the resources without becoming the very thing that's undercutting your sort of vision?

Jordan: Right. Right. And I think that I just wanted to bring those up because I think it's like you said, there's no easy answers, and we're not necessarily historians of the Federal Theatre Project to be able to go deeply in this episode about that. But I think it's a really interesting diverging path in Black theatre history because so much of this was helpful in helping to establish careers for Black artists. And putting Black theatre in a more visible space in the American theatre, obviously following all the successes that Black theatre by Black people had already had before this era, but employed people and gave them money and gave them opportunities. So that's really, really significant.

Leticia: Right. Because we can be all the freedom fighters we want to be, but money does matter at the end of the day. And I'm saying that kind of cheekily, but you know what I mean, money does matter in the situation oftentimes to be able to do the art. And yes, there's community theatre, yes, we get it from the mud and we can create something and put it on in the streets, but there is a level of being able to have your art funded. But like you said, employ[ing] people to see artists and Black artists as laborers and not just as the given entertainers that we should be able to take and extract from them without actually seeing their work as labor.

And I think that's a delicate balance that I also sort of struggle with, with just my research and what I study and why sometimes popular performers and artists are not considered laborers worthy of investment or time or money in particular ways. But that's neither here nor there, that's not this episode. But I think you're right, as you sort of situate artists' labor is an importance of money in that particular formation. But let's transition a bit to talk about some notable productions of the project. And I think we would be remiss if we do not talk about what has come to be known as Voodoo Macbeth, which was directed by Orson Welles, who for the first year was the sort of co-director of the Lafayette Theater with John Houseman. And in 1936 that shifted to three Black men.

But this particular production of Macbeth, all-Black version set in the nineteenth century, Haiti was notable for several reasons. It was one of four Manhattan premieres in the spring of 1936 that solidified the reputation of the Federal Theatre Project. It was probably the most controversial of their works, taking this sort of classic Shakespeare play and setting it in Haiti. And this is not the first time this sort of happened, but I think that there's a sort of long tradition of Black folks doing Shakespeare and the response that gets, or the celebration, I find that quite fascinating. And it also catapulted Orson Welles and his career in a way that I don't know if he would've... I'm sure he would've been successful regardless, but I don't know if—

Jordan: Not at twenty.

Leticia: That's true. Not twenty.

Jordan: Not at twenty. I mean, this is the guy who would in just a few short years after this, would go on to direct what many, many film bros considered to be the best film of all time, Citizen Kane. So yeah, maybe he would've been successful, but at twenty?

Leticia: That's true. That's true. That's true. And for Black performers, they were like the chance to perform the Bard and not have to do the shucking and jiving for white audiences that were expected. Sign me up. So a lot of research done around the Federal Theatre Project, you hear people talk about specifically Federal Theatre Project and Black theatre, they're often going to bring up Voodoo Macbeth. So I think I remember reading about it in graduate school was like... we joke that we're not Shakespeare girls, but we have talked about Shakespeare a lot and it always fascinates—

Jordan: But we're theatre girls. You know what I mean?

Leticia: We are the theatre girls.

Jordan: We better be Shakespeare girls. We're theatre girls and that—

Leticia: We're theatre girls.

Jordan: ...makes you somewhat of a Shakespearean girl.

Leticia: True, true that, true that. I'm just always so fascinated with the turn to Shakespeare to sort of legitimize Black artists and Black theatre in a way. And I don't know quite know where I land, but I think back to the African Grove Theatre, and when they did their production of a Shakespearean plays, the play's not coming to mind.

Jordan: Richard III.

Leticia: Richard III. Yes, thank you, Richard III, because there's a play about the play getting shut down.

Jordan: Yes, Carlton Brown.

Leticia: The African Company Presents Richard III.

Jordan: Oh, we should do episode on that.

Leticia: We should do an episode on that. And let me tell you folks, if you do not know about the African Grove Theater putting on Richard III: It was very popular because of course, amongst white folks and Black folks, the white folks wanted to see what the Black people do in Shakespeare because they thought it was going to be funny. But what happened was, is that everybody was going to see this particular production. And the white theatres who were also putting on Shakespeare plays was losing patronage and so much so, you know when a hater is a hater? The hatin’ ass white theatre owner next door called the cops and was like, "There's some stuff happening over there that needs to be shut down." And the cops came and shut the production down, locked up these actors for doing Shakespeare and the director. And then in order for the Black actors and the director to get out, they had to promise to never do Shakespeare again.

Jordan: Yikes.

Leticia: From that, and of course stuff is in between to this production of Macbeth being celebrated, and perhaps it was because there was a white director in charge. So there was perhaps an idea that, "Well, this is going to be a civilized production because of course, this white director knows how to sort of tackle Shakespeare in a particular way." I find compelling and full of contradiction and the way that Shakespeare travels on Black bodies quite interesting. And I wonder if the Federal Theatre Project in part and specifically Lafayette Theater Unit, which was housed in New York, was like, "We're going to do Macbeth because we know people, an integrated audience knows that play, likes that play, and it will put a legitimate spin on this project that we're doing."

Jordan: And this production was really, really successful. Like you said, it's widely remembered as if you know about the Federal Theatre Project, then you're going to know about this particular production. And I also want to note that in one of the books that I read, I believe it was the Rania Karoula one, the idea for the Haitian setting actually came from Orson Welles wife.

Leticia: Of course.

Jordan: Because Orson Welles was like “Scotland, I don't know if this is going to be appropriate for our particular production with an all-Black cast.” And his wife, Virginia suggested Haiti. And that led into research into discovering the figure of Henri Christophe, who was one of the freedom fighters of the Haitian Revolution. The entire production is filtered through this perspective of Henri Christophe. Even though the production was super, super successful, there was some questions around some of the material. Some folks were not happy with the portrayal of thinking about filtering this freedom fighter, the story of Macbeth, which is a very tragic figure, and Macbeth and all them would be doing, they be doing wild stuff in that play if you're not familiar with Macbeth.

And then also some white critics were really annoyed with the language and the reorientation of the language for some Haitian dialect, but also just generally moving away from kind of, quote, unquote, "standard English." And also even the things like the drums, the witches, all of that was kind of received with mixed feelings, even if the production itself was very successful. So yeah, I don't know. I am going to be in New York in a couple of weeks, and I hope I'm be able to catch it, but at the Brooklyn Academy of Music right now, or not right now, I think starting April 12th, they're going to be showing the clips, that footage that they have of this particular production. They're going to be showing that at BAM. So if you're going to be in New York, I guess I say a few weeks because when we're recording this, but maybe by the time this is released, it's not going to be at BAM anymore. But hopefully if you saw it at BAM, the Voodoo Macbeth footage, I'm excited to be able to see it.

Leticia: I do think there is a few clips around the internet that you also may be able to find if you can't get to it, they're not super long or anything, but if you just want to get a flavor for it, I do think there are some clips of it that is housed on the internet somewhere. Don't give me the line, "Where?" But I have seen them before. So yeah, big production, Voodoo Macbeth. But let's transition to maybe a lesser known artist who was attached to the Federal Theatre Project and someone who I didn't even know worked in the arts because I just knew her husband, who her husband was. But you, Jordan, as someone who's doing research on this particular person, brought this to my attention. So tell us about Shirley Graham.

Jordan: Yeah. Many people know her as Shirley Graham Du Bois because she was married to W. E. B.—“We Dem Boyz,” that's what I tell my students. They always want to say “Du Buah.” I'm like, "Just think of it like this." But yes, but that was in her later life. But she had a whole life before she married Mr. Du Bois. Shirley Graham was a playwright, director, producer. She wrote, I think she's widely considered to be one of the first African American women to write an opera, which was called Tom-Tom. And she was also, which is part of my delight in us doing this episode, is being able to talk about the fact that she was the only woman to direct a Negro unit as a part of the Federal Theatre Project, and she was pretty successful at doing that. One of the most successful productions that she had is The Swing Mikado. So for those of you who don't know, The Mikado is an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. I think it was also later turned into a musical because my school did it before I got there.

My high school did it a couple years before I got there. And I remember seeing very confusing photographs of many different people of many different ethnic backgrounds wearing... oh, what are they called? Kimonos, and being like, "What is this?" I want to say it was either turned into a musical or a musicalized version of the opera. I don't know. But yeah, it's been pretty well known that it was a pretty stereotypical portrayal of East Asians. But Shirley Graham did a production of the The Mikado called TheSwing Mikado, which was a jazz interpretation of this opera. It ran for five months in Chicago. For a regular regional, I guess the regional theatre wasn't really kind of a thing back then, not the way we know it now, but for localized regional production of anything, five months is a long time. I don't think I've known any regional plays that have gone on for five months.

Leticia: There are shows today that don't even last five months. Five months on Broadway, so five is nothing to raise your nose at, let me tell you that.

Jordan: And so it actually successfully moved to Broadway, and people attended it, like Eleanor Roosevelt. Yes. First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my personal favorite first ladies in history. Yes, yes, family. She's family.

Leticia: And by family, we're not saying Black. I feel like we need to say that. Family as in queer. Not family as in Black.

Jordan: But also it was just a really successful production. Although New York Times reviewer, Brooks Atkinson wrote an incredibly racist, or I guess racially insensitive, I should say, review of the show saying that “the chorus includes some dusky wenches who can dance for the jitterbugs with gleaming frenzy.”

Leticia: Wenches?

Jordan: “When the company gives TheMikado a Cotton Club finish, they raise the body temperature considerably.”

Leticia: Now why cotton in it? That is terrible. Oh my God.

Jordan: And I feel like the Cotton Club, okay, not every Black person performed in the Cotton Club, even though they kind of did. But it's okay. But it's racist. It's racist because you're assuming.

Leticia: That's wild.

Jordan: That's so bad. So it's like, to me, I love the reviews, and I think by the time this episode comes out, you will have hopefully heard our amazing interview with Kelundra Smith, who's an arts journalist. And we talk in that episode about how much reviews can really teach us about history. And that taught me a lot, right? Even though this production is successful, and even though it is proving the success of Black artists, it doesn't mean that every single person watching it is going to see them in a really positive light that we want them to.

Leticia: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Jordan: Also, I was going to say, I was going to read this quote that Shirley Graham gave in 1940 because it's such a good quote. And she told the Indianapolis Times in July 1940, she says, "We are dramatic people. Our situation in this country is dramatic. They say the Negro laughs a lot, but much of the time we laugh to keep from crying." Amen, sister. We do. We do. We do. I just love our situation in this country.

Leticia: I know that should go in the Blacksonian. And if it's still going to exist, who knows. I know. I know. I know. I know. So I think that these two particular folks that we sort of focus on in the productions are important when we sort think about the legacy, one perhaps more well-known than the other, but just sort of the breadth and depth of the work that was being produced. And on that note, the Federal Theatre Project was not just about producing new plays or launching the career of white directors, so that can produce, or they can direct Citizen Kane and become really, really famous after. It was also invested in a lot of developmental work.

And one of those programs was the Negro Dramatist Laboratory, which was conceived by the managing directors of the Harlem Project. And it was to encourage and develop Black playwrights. And they did things such as symposiums where they invited local Black writers and also national Black writers who can make it to come to New York and take workshops and lectures on theatre. And how to write theatre, how to research for your play, the technical requirements, but also things like copyright law, right? Just to equip these Black playwrights or these folks who wanted to enter into the field, a way to sort of understand their craft holistically.

And so much so that they conducted these symposiums and these programs, but also they allowed them to write and submit their work to be produced. And while many playwrights did submit their full length plays, unfortunately only, I think maybe two out of maybe twenty or so scripts were actually fully produced. One being Theodore Ward, who you may recognize that name as the playwright of Big White Fog and was probably the most successful Black writers to be developed by the Negro Dramatist Laboratory and illustrates the importance of it. The Big White Fog is also a pretty huge play within... The Black theatre landscape, I think the first time I actually read it was in Faedra's class, her African American Theatre History course. Did you read it? She's switched a little bit? Yeah, I think she switched it.

Jordan: Yeah, I read it on my own, but we didn't read in that class. We read something else. But yeah, one of the plays of the thirties, like the Depression era, we don't actually talk a lot about that period in Black theatre. I mean the Federal Theatre Project notwithstanding, but this a Depression-era Black playwright, we don't normally focus on that. So one of the very few that we know of or that we still study.

Leticia: So on that note, the Federal Theatre Project also did a lot of different other plays. Theodore Brown, one of the dramatists that was connected with them, wrote a play called Natural Man. He also did another play that was the Black adaptation of Lysistrata, and a play about Harriet Tubman called A Black WomanCalled Moses. So even with his particular dramatic works that I just mentioned, quite distinctive in subject matter. So I think it really reflects the sort of diversity of content and themes and subjects that the Federal Theatre Project was a part of.

Jordan: And also, what's really great about the Federal Theatre Project is, and we are highlighting all the playwrights, producing, directing, but also the development of stage technicians, right? Remember that was part of Professor Flanagan's original purpose, and one of those was stage managers. So the Negro Actors Guild wanted to not focus just only on the Black actor. It also included Black stage managers and Black technical theatre folks. One of the Lafayette directors, Edward Perry, commented on the fact that, and this is from one of our sources, Dewberry, comments on the fact that the Federal Theatre Project actually gave more opportunities to Black stage managers than any other project previously.

And so we don't often hear about Black stage managers, even here I'm thinking about the fact that we need to also, I'm like, "We need to talk to some Black stage managers." I've had some amazing ones that I've worked with throughout my time in theatre, and so I'd love to hear more about that history. Any listeners, potential historians or potential professors who are looking for a project, would love a book on Black stage managers, that would be amazing. And finally going on the impact of the program, the impact of the Federal Theatre Project.

Leticia: So all intents and purposes, the Federal Theatre Project was quite a short endeavor. It was killed by Congress at the end of June 1939. And even though it had done a lot of good work, and specifically the Black press and Black actors were very quite supportive of it. And even when there was talks about the funding being snatched, a lot of the Black press came to advocate for the utility and importance of the program. So after four years, of course, it shut down, but many people sort of celebrated the work that it had done. Dick Campbell, who was supposed to take the lead of the Lafayette unit in Harlem at the beginning of June 1939, unfortunately he did not because Congress snatched the funding. He set up the program, quote, "Hundreds of people were working, Black people received a big boost from that. There were all kinds of theatre for people. That was the greatest American theatre that ever existed. Nothing since has even remotely equaled what the WPA Theatre Project was," end quote.

It just, again, shows you the importance of it. Another Black theatre critic, Fannie S. Belcher, explained, quote,

It must be recognized however, that there was a difference in attitude between the White and the Negro groups. The former, to a larger extent, viewed the Federal Theatre Project merely as a temporary job to tide them over the lull in stage activities. The latter were securing their first opportunity to have steady employment in their profession, to produce the plays they wanted to produce without bowing to commercial prejudices. And we're hoping to do so well that the group might be self-supporting if and when the Federal Theatre Project was dissolved. The Negro units also thought of the project as a training school,

end quote. So all in all, I think the Federal Theatre Project was great, and it makes me reflect on this moment, and who knows what's going to happen in these next years and situation. Apparently, we're headed for a recession according to the news.

Jordan: Yeah, we are. But I think what is not different, and I mean, I wasn't a baby, but I was young during the recession, the 2008 recession. And so I don't really know what the conversations were in the arts during that period leading up to it. But I feel like maybe this is just me being a cautiously optimistic person, but I feel like there is a little bit more preparation and a little bit more like, "All right, how do we get in front of the problem with theatres now?” especially with the attack on arts funding from the Trump administration, and combined with the fact that theatre never really truly recovered from the impact of the COVID pandemic as well.

And so with all of that, I feel like there is some prep work and problem-solving, creative problem-solving going on with a lot of companies. So I'm hopeful that they can figure out strategies to help it thrive and survive. Because I love theatre. I be talking my mess, but I love theatre. I'll always love theatre. And reading more about the Federal Theatre Project, it just highlights even more how it would be so nice to have that in the United States, a sustainable pot of money that is allocated to theatres. Now, it's supposed to be the NEA and the NEH and all these other places, but those are being gutted as we speak. But yeah.

Leticia: Yeah. So yes, let's lean into that cautiously optimistic attitude in this particular moment. And let's end on a knowledge note, AKA our reading lists. A staple here at doctors of— Daughters of Lorraine, “doctors of Lorraine,” that's so funny, Daughters of Lorraine for plays, we have Big White Fog, obviously by Theodore Ward. We have Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and The Negro by Shirley Graham. I Gotta Home by Shirley Graham and Hall Johnson's Run, Little Chillun. For books and articles we have...

Jordan: Jonathan Dewberry’s, “Black Actors Unite: The Negro Actors’ Guild,” and that was in The Black Scholar, Ronald Ross's, “The Role of Blacks in the Federal Theatre” from the Journal of Negro History. And “A Story Yet to Be Told: The Federal Theatre Research Project” by Lorraine Brown, also in The Black Scholar. Shout out to The Black Scholar for always publishing works on Black theatre. And then we have E. Quita Craig's Black Drama of the Federal Theater Era, Rena Fraden's Blueprints for Black Federal Theatre, and Rania Karoula's The Federal Theater Project: Engagement and Experimentation.

Leticia: So check those out if you are interested in learning more about the Federal Theatre Project and its intersection with Black theatre. I will say I definitely learned a lot just by doing research for this episode, and it really solidifies for me the importance that artists are considered workers and arts funding and the necessity for arts funding to be a priority.

Jordan: All right, y'all. We'll see y'all in our next episode. Bye.

Leticia: Peace.

This has been another episode of Daughters of Lorraine. We're your hosts, Leticia Ridley...

Jordan: And Jordan Ealey. We'll see you on our next episode. You definitely won't want to miss it. In the meantime, if you're looking to connect with us, please follow us on Instagram at DO Lorraine Pod, P-O-D. You can also email us at [email protected] for further contact.

Leticia: Our theme music is composed by Inza Bamba. The Daughters of Lorraine podcast is supported by HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. It's available on iTunes, Spotify, and howlround.com. If you're looking for the podcast on iTunes or Spotify, you'll want to search and subscribe to Daughters of Lorraine podcast.

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