Federal Theatre Project

The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal program, organized under the Works Progress Administration, which organized and funded the production of stage plays during the years of the Great Depression.

Producing plays provided employment to individuals, who earned a standard wage of $23.86 per week. It also helped restore revenues to otherwise vacant playhouses, and to entertain the public. The proceeds from tickets sold were directed to other relief and educational programs. Due to prevailing custom and Birmingham's segregation ordinances, local companies were divided by race, with the "Colored Unit" operating under the name of the Negro Repertory Theatre. Clyde Limbaugh assembled his cast from WPA worker rolls and led rehearsals at the Colored YWCA.

Birmingham was one of 21 cities that hosted simultaneous productions of Sinclair Lewis' adaptation of his novel, "It Can't Happen Here" on October 27, 1936. Artistic directors discussed tailoring the production to the local context by playing up the pageantry of Berzelius Windrip's presidential campaign with a brass band and patriotic bunting.

A meeting of directors of the Federal Theatre Project was also held in Birmingham in October 1936. Birmingham Age-Herald editor John Temple Graves addressed the group and pleaded for dramatists to look at contemporary struggles with poverty, race and industrialization rather than to continually romanticize the South in stories. In response, Frances Nimmo Greene, head of the project's Southern division, suggested staging Thomas Hall-Rogers' story "Altars of Steel".

Before that production was staged, however, the White unit in Birmingham had been merged into Atlanta's, which was sponsored by the Little Theatre Guild there, under the direction of Albert Lovejoy. When it opened, "Altars of Steel" proved itself to be a standout production, earning wide acclaim alongside some controversy.

Productions

White unit

• "After Dark" (May 1936) at Jefferson Theatre
• "Chalk Dust" (June 1936) at Jefferson Theatre
• "Great Day" (October 7, 1936)
• "It Can't Happen Here" (October 27, 1936–)

Colored unit

• "Home in Glory" (April 16–May 15, 1936) at Municipal Auditorium
• "Swamp Mud" (July 11, 1936) at Industrial High School
• "Accident Policy" (July 31–August 1, 1936)

References

• Flanagan, Hallie (1940) Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre. Duell, Sloan & Pearce
• Poole, John R. (2001) "Making a Tree from Thirst: Acquiescence and Defiance in the Federal Theatre Project in Birmingham, Alabama". Theatre History Studies No. 21, pp. 27–42
• Wright, A. J. (September 9, 2020) "The Federal Theatre Project in Alabama" Alabama Yesterdays

External links

• "Accident Policy" playbill at the Library of Congress