History Telling

TAH Grant

Professional Development Workshop

September 13, 2008

Looking at Objects Then and Now

• What is your object made out of?• What is its physical characteristics?• Who made this object? Is it man or machine

made?• Who do you think owns/uses/likes/dislikes this

object?• What is the function of this object?• Why does this object have value? Is it monetary,

sentimental, both?• When do you think this object was made?• Where was your object made?

“One Third of a Nation…”

The Federal Theater Project

• Established August 27, 1935• Part of the WPA (the Works Progress Administration)• The role of the FTP, similar to that of the WPA, was to

provide work for unemployed artists• Hallie Flannigan became director in 1935. Consistently

accused of communist and socialist agendas, especially through the political slant of Living Newspaper plays.

• Famous artists: Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, Elia Kazan, Arthur Arent.

• The FTP met with the same fate as Hallie Flannigan and Congress disbanded the project for un-American activities.

• Funding was cancelled on June 30, 1939

Federal Theater Project Cont.“Before the creation of the Works Progress Administration and the

Federal Theatre Project, various drama units were established in 1934 by Harry Hopkins through an earlier Federal agency, the Civil Works Administration.”

“Subsequently, $27,000,000 of $4,800,000,000 made available by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was set aside for Federal Project Number One, the four arts projects. In October, 1935, $6,784,036, based on estimated theatrical unemployment, was allotted to the theater. With this commitment of funding, representatives of the Federal Theatre director throughout the country, set up classification boards, auditioned theatre personnel and started theater groups, in cooperation with local Works Progress Administration offices and with the United States Employment Service.”

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftwpa.html

Federal Theatre Projects in 1936(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftwpa.html)

• 265-6902-804 Experimental Theatre

• " 805 Living Newspaper • " 806 Negro Theatre • " 807 Popular Price Theatre • " 808 Marionette Theatre • " 810 Vaudeville and Circus • " 811 Teaching of Theatre

Technique • " 812 C.C.C. Theatre Project • " 814 Play Bureau • " 815 Federal Theatre Workshop • " 817 Administrative • " 819 Technical Coordinating • " 820 Financial Coordinating

• " 821 Theatre of Dance • " 855 Radio Coordinating • " 868 Touring Unit #1 • " 885 Business Coordinating • " 891 Classical Theatre • " 899 Material and Supplies • " 901 Personnel • " 902 Theatre Management • " 903 Touring Unit #2 (Macbeth) • " 904 Suitcase Theatre • " 905 Kings and Queens • " 921 Children's Theatre • " 922 Manhattan and Bronx • " 923 Yiddish Theatre • " 926 Federal Theatre National

Publications

Living Newspapers• Thoroughly researched plays• Subjects taken directly from newspapers

focusing on current events• The content was meant to be informative even if

politically slanted to the left• “Arthur Arendt wrote “…One Third of a

Nation…”• Taken from FDR’s second inaugural address• Opened in 1938, ran for 230 shows, was

considered the most successful… …but not as politically charged as some

previous plays?

Living Newspapers, Cont.

“The Living Newspaper is a dramatization of a problem – composed in greater or lesser extent of many news events, all bearing on the one subject and interrelated with typical but non-factual representations of the effect of these news events on the people to whom the problem is of great importance. ”

Arthur Arent (author, One Third of a Nation…)

“…they seeks to dramatize a new struggle – the search of the average American today for knowledge about his country and his world; to dramatize his struggle to turn the great natural and economic forces of our time toward a better life for more people. ”

Hallie Flanagan (director, Federal Theater Project)

Wagner- Steagall Act

• The Housing Act of 1937

• Provided federal funds for PHAs: public housing agencies

• Detractors worried about the intrusion of government legislating the private sectors

• Eventually led to Slum Clearance.

Review from The Times

“The Living Newspaper concludes this stimulating lesson in a social problem by demanding the New Deal stop trying to balance the budget. The Federal Theatre’s Newspaper will have none of that inhuman nonsense.”

Review by Richard Watts, Jr.

“Although partisan, they are careful not to seem unfair, and so they do not attempt to lay the blame for inadequate housing on facilities on the shoulders of individual villains. They are, of all things, passably courteous to the tenement landlords, showing them as natural products of an existing condition rather than melodramatic ogres. That, however, does not prevent them from satirizing, with the vigorous cartoon skill of the Living Newspaper, the historic landlords of Manhattan and the inadequacies of the investigations into conditions following slum fires and plagues.”

January 18, 1938

The Living Newspaper

Nation Wide Plans For New Dwellings Make Subject News

“Just as “…one third of a nation…” was ready to open, Mayor LaGuardia presented plans for two huge low-cost slum-elimination projects to Nathan Straus, Administrator, Unites States Housing Authority”

Writing Your Script!Act I:• Document Based Analyses:Group discussion: • Who are the characters in your documents? • What is the setting in the documents? • What is the problem or conflict depicted?

Act II:• Bringing the Documents to Life—Setting the Stage:In your play, who are your characters?

What is the setting?

What is the problem or conflict your scenario is depicting?

Is there a resolution or compromise? If so, what is it?

• Creating Your Scenario:Write a one page/two minute script, including dialogue, bringing to life your

resources!Don’t forget to plan how you will present your script to your audience!