Not long ago, I became aware of a recently published book by James Shapiro entitled The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War. I have (and have read) several of Shapiro’s other books (his one’s relating to Shakespeare), so I took a second look at this new one. I quickly discovered that it discusses the actions of the “Dies Committee” (which would eventually become the House Committee on Un-American Activities [often called the House Un-American Activities Committee, and referred to as HUAC] which would become a good deal better known in the 1950’s and beyond) and its efforts to shut down the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project in the late 1930’s. In the process of discussing this issue, he demonstrates that what we now refer to as the “Culture War” dates back at least into the 1930s, so it’s nothing new, or even recent, being close to 100!
Now, I have been intrigued by the FTP for a long time, as it was intended to serve a good purpose, along with the other projects of the Works Progress Administration, such as the TVA, which provided Power (still does) to a large rural, southern region where it was/is unlikely that commercial enterprises could be very successful and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which helped to develop and preserve National Parks and other Federal lands. Overall, the WPA gave some 8.5 million people jobs. Its construction projects produced more than 650,000 miles of roads, 125,000 public buildings, 75,000 bridges, and 8,000 parks.
The specific charge of the Federal Theatre Project was to put theatre workers (actors, directors, playwrights, stagehands, etc., back to work. It was placed under the direction of Hallie Flanagan, a theatre professor and director of the experimental theater at Vassar College. During its existence, the FTP employed some 10,000 professional theatre workers in all facets of the theatre, and presented about 1,000 productions that were mounted in 40 states over four years, often free to the public (but never more than a “token” fee). These productions included classical and modern drama, children’s plays, puppet shows, circuses, vaudevilles, musical comedies, and documentary productions known as “Living Newspapers.” Other activities included producing plays by young, unknown American playwrights, helping preserve/establish Black American theatres, and presenting radio broadcasts of dramatic works. It is estimated that Federal Theatre Project productions were seen by about 25 million people (somewhere between 1/4 and 1/5 of the U.S. population) during its, roughly, four year life.
Obviously, this sort of popularity was NOT going to suit some people, especially anti-New Dealers (many of whom were, in fact, Democrats of the more “conservative” stripe). Yes, hard as it is for some people to believe (or remember) these days, there actually were CONSERVATIVE Democrats (sometimes referred to as “Dixiecrats” because many of them were from the states of the “Old South”) who were outraged at the New Deal’s “Socialist” (usually referred to as “Communist”) activities; like putting people on the government payroll, creating Social Security, regulating banks (including the creation of the FDIC), supporting the right of workers to create unions, working to encourage greater private ownership of farms (by reducing “tenancy”), considering Black workers as worthy of the same support as White ones, and virtually all other aspects of the “New Deal.”
In fact, it’s probably not too much to say that while the WPA may have been a special target of these forces, the arts, overall, became something of a central focus, because artists have always been viewed as somewhat “bohemian” and highly “progressive,” even when they aren’t. Now it is fair to say that there were many “modern” artists (in all of the arts) who WERE, in fact, somewhat more open to ideas which were viewed with some suspicion by a fairly wide variety of people. I would suggest that that may well have been the result of the fact that artists, as a general group, did (still do) tend towards being somewhat less rigid in their refusal to just maintain the status quo, since art, almost by definition, tends to want to try something new and/or different, to see what happens.
Personally, I think that these notions may be fairly quickly grasped by watching the movie Cradle Will Rock, (available through Amazon) written and directed by Tim Robbins, which deals with this sort of socio-cultural conflict in the 1930’s. Its main focus is the FTP-planned production of a new musical by Marc Blitzstein called The Cradle Will Rock, which never took place as an FTP production. You see, armed guards were sent into the streets of NYC to close the theatre as this Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed was considered by some in Congress to be un-American. In addition, the movie explores a number of aspects of various folks trying (and to some extent succeeding) in waging war on art by either using their wealth to influence it (supporting only that which they agree with politically or simply destroying that which they don’t like). I hasten to point out that the movie DOES take some liberties with the actual events and time period for greater impact, but it is true that most (if not all) of the characters are patterned after real (named) people and the events depicted are, in fact, true. However, the time span has been altered to place them in greater proximity to each other for dramatic impact. (Note: I still highly recommend this movie as both fun to watch and quite informative, if not strictly factual.)
Of course, all theatre people should know that on June 15,1937, the WPA was forced to padlock Maxine Elliott's Theatre, where The Cradle Will Rock had been in rehearsal and was about to go into previews. Uniformed, armed guards prevented anyone from removing props or costumes, which were, technically, U.S. government property. Actor’s Equity and the Musician’s Union, under Congressional pressure, forbade their members from “performing,” which was intended to (and DID appear to) doom the production. As it actually happened, however, John Houseman (the Producer of the show) and Orson Welles (its Director) mounted the play (in a fashion) down the street in the quickly hired Venice Theatre and opened it under private auspices (in what would lead to the creation of The Mercury Theatre) on June 16, 1937, the date of the planned WPA first public preview. The 600 audience members, who had gathered outside Maxine Elliot’s Theatre for the preview, travelled 21 blocks north to the hastily rented Venice Theatre; many on foot. Blitzstein played the piano onstage (he was NOT a union member) and (as it turned out) many of the cast members sang their parts from the audience (thereby avoiding union conflicts), in what has become a legendary performance.
But, the FTP was fighting censorship battles for most of its existence, even for shows intended for children. The dominant challenge, as I see it, was that “Leftist” ideas, labor unions, government regulation of industry (even government ownership à la the TVA), and equality generally (even across racial lines) were frequently advocated in its productions, much to the annoyance of “conservative” officials.
For another general take on the FTP, I would recommend the book Free, Adult, Uncensored edited by John O'Connor and Lorraine Brown. I like this book mostly for its pictures and drawings from a number of the FTP’s productions. It’s apparently out of print, but copies can be found on Amazon.
But I have strayed far from my point. I started to write this because, in considering Shapiro’s book, I was reminded of what has come to be called in recent years the “Culture Wars,” which refers to the attacks on allowing the general public access to “certain aspects” of our history and the need to “eliminate discussion” of “certain topics” in literature, especially in our schools and educational system. Some of the ideas which are often deemed “too questionable” to be allowed public discussion appear to include the following:
1. Slavery DID exist and, it’s quite doubtful that much in the way of ANY real benefits were provided by it to those people who were enslaved (no matter what Ron DeSantis, who should know from earning a B.A. degree in history degree from Yale that such assertions would seem to require SOME actual evidence) and whose great-grandparents (both sets) immigrated from Southern Italy after the American Civil War ended (so it’s unlikely that he has any direct, personal, family knowledge of either slavery or the conditions which immediately followed its ending) says.
2. The Civil War was, in fact, over the issue of slavery (“State’s Rights” being, to a large extent, about the idea that individual states should be able to allow slavery, if they desired).
3. Not ALL (or only) “Southerners” defended slavery, which had been practiced in most (if not all) of the colonies at some time, and, in fact, a fair number of “Southerners” actually fought on the Union side during the Civil War.
4. While many [perhaps ALL) of the earliest European settlers were familiar with and, generally supported, Christianity, they took considerable steps to outlaw the idea of an “Official” national religion (as was common in Europe) in our earliest official documents, so the United States was NOT founded as a “Christian nation.”
5. LGBTQ+ people do, in fact, exist and they deserve the same rights and privileges as other citizens, as they are not, generally, accepted as “mentally ill” by most qualified, expert medical practitioners (religious leaders and politicians opinions really have little validity).
6. That females should enjoy the same rights to physical and bodily autonomy in health-related questions as males; and if Viagra, testosterone, and other “manly”medications and treatments are personal, medical choices for men (with their doctor), then women should equally have the right to control their own contraception, pregnancy, and other questions of female health (also in consultation with their doctor).
7. One’s race should NOT be allowed to have any bearing on a citizen’s rights, freedoms, responsibilities, or treatment in legal matters, and this should include dealing with questions of immigrants/immigration as well as with the very long-neglected shabby treatment of those peoples who were present in this land before Europeans arrived and whose religions, languages, and cultures those former Europeans tried to abolish as “unacceptable” for “real” people.
8. While it may be desirable to consider age and educational level in the distribution of ideas (providing information as to how to build an atomic bomb, etc., probably shouldn’t be readily available to kindergarten students) but, generally speaking, ideas should not be censored just because some individuals don’t agree with them, or they are unpopular, even if they are deemed antisocial or offensive. Intelligent, reasonable people ought to be able to DISCUSS, read, write, make art, etc., from/about anything, unless it can be PROVEN (in an UNBIASED court) that there is NO “socially redeeming” value in it. After all, if we refuse to allow the existence and/or discussion of offensive ideas, then how will we understand why they might be offensive? After all, considering/discussing something is NOT the same as supporting it, which is the whole principle of actual debate (as opposed to what we call “political debates”).
I have listed my ideas here because I wish to be on record about them. I will admit that they also do NOT represent what I believe could be considered as an accurate treatment of Shapiro’s ideas regarding what we now call the “culture wars.” So, in closing, I wish to include a somewhat lengthy quote from The Playbook which, in my opinion, sums up Shapiro’s thoughts fairly succinctly. I would encourage any and all to get a copy of this book and read ALL of it. I believe that it will make you think, assuming that you actually wish to do so.
It’s hard to imagine what America would be like today had support for the Federal Theatre continued and the Dies Committee not been renewed. Counterfactual history is best left to novelists. But a more vibrant theatrical culture extending across the land might well have led to a more informed citizenry, and by extension, a more equitable and resilient democracy. What happened instead was that Martin Dies begat Senator Joseph McCarthy, who begat Roy Cohn, who begat Donald Trump, who begat the horned “QAnon Shaman,” who from the dais of the Senate on January 6, 2021, thanked his fellow insurrectionists at the Capitol “for allowing us to get rid of the Communists, the globalists, and the traitors within our government.”
In the aftermath of that attack on the Capitol, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered theaters and put many actors and writers out of work, there was talk of resurrecting the federal writers’ and theater projects. On the eighty-sixth anniversary of the establishment of the WPA, Democrats Ted W. Lieu of California and Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico urged fellow members of the House to pass a “21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act.” At much the same time, hopeful articles–with American Theatre optimistically asking, “So What Could a 'New Federal Theatre Project’ Actually Look Like?”—began calling for the return of a Federal Theatre as well. But these efforts have found no traction. Their timing could not have been worse, for culture warriors in Congress, in state legislatures, even in once-benign community schoolboards, were turning time and again to the Dies playbook to secure power and challenge progressive initiatives, including anything having to do with the arts or America’s racial reckoning.
Of late, the Dies playbook has once again been employed in culture-war attacks on theater, this time in America’s schools. The New York Times reported in July 2023 that productions of such popular high school plays as the musical Oklahoma! (in which a character says the word “damn”) and August Wilson’s Fences (objectionable because it has no White characters), as well as plays that explore same-sex love, have been attacked and censored from Florida to Oregon, with objections “coming largely from right-leaning parents and school officials.” Staging Chekhov’s Three Sisters has been nixed in Chattanooga, Tennessee (since it deals with adultery), while in Lansing, Kansas, students are not even allowed to study, let alone stage, The Laramie Project, a play about the murder of a gay student, Matthew Shepard. In a 2023 Education Theatre Association survey, 85 percent of American theater teachers expressed concern about censorship. In Florida, a newly minted law has led to A Midsummer Night’s Dream being pulled from middle school libraries and classrooms, while Romeo and Juliet will now be taught in snippets, to avoid falling afoul of legislation targeting “sexual conduct.” The clash between the playbooks of Martin Dies and Hallie Flanagan continues to resonate across the land, with lessons for both the right and the left, and consequences for us all.
From pp. 266—268 of The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy, and the making of a Culture War by James Shapiro
I hope to return soon with my mind on happier subjects, but recent developments, and the publication of Shapiro’s book have gotten me to thinking “…too much. Such men are dangerous ….” I expect to return in a couple of weeks.
🖖🏼 LLAP,
Dr. B
Now, I have been intrigued by the FTP for a long time, as it was intended to serve a good purpose, along with the other projects of the Works Progress Administration, such as the TVA, which provided Power (still does) to a large rural, southern region where it was/is unlikely that commercial enterprises could be very successful and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which helped to develop and preserve National Parks and other Federal lands. Overall, the WPA gave some 8.5 million people jobs. Its construction projects produced more than 650,000 miles of roads, 125,000 public buildings, 75,000 bridges, and 8,000 parks.
The specific charge of the Federal Theatre Project was to put theatre workers (actors, directors, playwrights, stagehands, etc., back to work. It was placed under the direction of Hallie Flanagan, a theatre professor and director of the experimental theater at Vassar College. During its existence, the FTP employed some 10,000 professional theatre workers in all facets of the theatre, and presented about 1,000 productions that were mounted in 40 states over four years, often free to the public (but never more than a “token” fee). These productions included classical and modern drama, children’s plays, puppet shows, circuses, vaudevilles, musical comedies, and documentary productions known as “Living Newspapers.” Other activities included producing plays by young, unknown American playwrights, helping preserve/establish Black American theatres, and presenting radio broadcasts of dramatic works. It is estimated that Federal Theatre Project productions were seen by about 25 million people (somewhere between 1/4 and 1/5 of the U.S. population) during its, roughly, four year life.
Obviously, this sort of popularity was NOT going to suit some people, especially anti-New Dealers (many of whom were, in fact, Democrats of the more “conservative” stripe). Yes, hard as it is for some people to believe (or remember) these days, there actually were CONSERVATIVE Democrats (sometimes referred to as “Dixiecrats” because many of them were from the states of the “Old South”) who were outraged at the New Deal’s “Socialist” (usually referred to as “Communist”) activities; like putting people on the government payroll, creating Social Security, regulating banks (including the creation of the FDIC), supporting the right of workers to create unions, working to encourage greater private ownership of farms (by reducing “tenancy”), considering Black workers as worthy of the same support as White ones, and virtually all other aspects of the “New Deal.”
In fact, it’s probably not too much to say that while the WPA may have been a special target of these forces, the arts, overall, became something of a central focus, because artists have always been viewed as somewhat “bohemian” and highly “progressive,” even when they aren’t. Now it is fair to say that there were many “modern” artists (in all of the arts) who WERE, in fact, somewhat more open to ideas which were viewed with some suspicion by a fairly wide variety of people. I would suggest that that may well have been the result of the fact that artists, as a general group, did (still do) tend towards being somewhat less rigid in their refusal to just maintain the status quo, since art, almost by definition, tends to want to try something new and/or different, to see what happens.
Personally, I think that these notions may be fairly quickly grasped by watching the movie Cradle Will Rock, (available through Amazon) written and directed by Tim Robbins, which deals with this sort of socio-cultural conflict in the 1930’s. Its main focus is the FTP-planned production of a new musical by Marc Blitzstein called The Cradle Will Rock, which never took place as an FTP production. You see, armed guards were sent into the streets of NYC to close the theatre as this Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed was considered by some in Congress to be un-American. In addition, the movie explores a number of aspects of various folks trying (and to some extent succeeding) in waging war on art by either using their wealth to influence it (supporting only that which they agree with politically or simply destroying that which they don’t like). I hasten to point out that the movie DOES take some liberties with the actual events and time period for greater impact, but it is true that most (if not all) of the characters are patterned after real (named) people and the events depicted are, in fact, true. However, the time span has been altered to place them in greater proximity to each other for dramatic impact. (Note: I still highly recommend this movie as both fun to watch and quite informative, if not strictly factual.)
Of course, all theatre people should know that on June 15,1937, the WPA was forced to padlock Maxine Elliott's Theatre, where The Cradle Will Rock had been in rehearsal and was about to go into previews. Uniformed, armed guards prevented anyone from removing props or costumes, which were, technically, U.S. government property. Actor’s Equity and the Musician’s Union, under Congressional pressure, forbade their members from “performing,” which was intended to (and DID appear to) doom the production. As it actually happened, however, John Houseman (the Producer of the show) and Orson Welles (its Director) mounted the play (in a fashion) down the street in the quickly hired Venice Theatre and opened it under private auspices (in what would lead to the creation of The Mercury Theatre) on June 16, 1937, the date of the planned WPA first public preview. The 600 audience members, who had gathered outside Maxine Elliot’s Theatre for the preview, travelled 21 blocks north to the hastily rented Venice Theatre; many on foot. Blitzstein played the piano onstage (he was NOT a union member) and (as it turned out) many of the cast members sang their parts from the audience (thereby avoiding union conflicts), in what has become a legendary performance.
But, the FTP was fighting censorship battles for most of its existence, even for shows intended for children. The dominant challenge, as I see it, was that “Leftist” ideas, labor unions, government regulation of industry (even government ownership à la the TVA), and equality generally (even across racial lines) were frequently advocated in its productions, much to the annoyance of “conservative” officials.
For another general take on the FTP, I would recommend the book Free, Adult, Uncensored edited by John O'Connor and Lorraine Brown. I like this book mostly for its pictures and drawings from a number of the FTP’s productions. It’s apparently out of print, but copies can be found on Amazon.
But I have strayed far from my point. I started to write this because, in considering Shapiro’s book, I was reminded of what has come to be called in recent years the “Culture Wars,” which refers to the attacks on allowing the general public access to “certain aspects” of our history and the need to “eliminate discussion” of “certain topics” in literature, especially in our schools and educational system. Some of the ideas which are often deemed “too questionable” to be allowed public discussion appear to include the following:
1. Slavery DID exist and, it’s quite doubtful that much in the way of ANY real benefits were provided by it to those people who were enslaved (no matter what Ron DeSantis, who should know from earning a B.A. degree in history degree from Yale that such assertions would seem to require SOME actual evidence) and whose great-grandparents (both sets) immigrated from Southern Italy after the American Civil War ended (so it’s unlikely that he has any direct, personal, family knowledge of either slavery or the conditions which immediately followed its ending) says.
2. The Civil War was, in fact, over the issue of slavery (“State’s Rights” being, to a large extent, about the idea that individual states should be able to allow slavery, if they desired).
3. Not ALL (or only) “Southerners” defended slavery, which had been practiced in most (if not all) of the colonies at some time, and, in fact, a fair number of “Southerners” actually fought on the Union side during the Civil War.
4. While many [perhaps ALL) of the earliest European settlers were familiar with and, generally supported, Christianity, they took considerable steps to outlaw the idea of an “Official” national religion (as was common in Europe) in our earliest official documents, so the United States was NOT founded as a “Christian nation.”
5. LGBTQ+ people do, in fact, exist and they deserve the same rights and privileges as other citizens, as they are not, generally, accepted as “mentally ill” by most qualified, expert medical practitioners (religious leaders and politicians opinions really have little validity).
6. That females should enjoy the same rights to physical and bodily autonomy in health-related questions as males; and if Viagra, testosterone, and other “manly”medications and treatments are personal, medical choices for men (with their doctor), then women should equally have the right to control their own contraception, pregnancy, and other questions of female health (also in consultation with their doctor).
7. One’s race should NOT be allowed to have any bearing on a citizen’s rights, freedoms, responsibilities, or treatment in legal matters, and this should include dealing with questions of immigrants/immigration as well as with the very long-neglected shabby treatment of those peoples who were present in this land before Europeans arrived and whose religions, languages, and cultures those former Europeans tried to abolish as “unacceptable” for “real” people.
8. While it may be desirable to consider age and educational level in the distribution of ideas (providing information as to how to build an atomic bomb, etc., probably shouldn’t be readily available to kindergarten students) but, generally speaking, ideas should not be censored just because some individuals don’t agree with them, or they are unpopular, even if they are deemed antisocial or offensive. Intelligent, reasonable people ought to be able to DISCUSS, read, write, make art, etc., from/about anything, unless it can be PROVEN (in an UNBIASED court) that there is NO “socially redeeming” value in it. After all, if we refuse to allow the existence and/or discussion of offensive ideas, then how will we understand why they might be offensive? After all, considering/discussing something is NOT the same as supporting it, which is the whole principle of actual debate (as opposed to what we call “political debates”).
I have listed my ideas here because I wish to be on record about them. I will admit that they also do NOT represent what I believe could be considered as an accurate treatment of Shapiro’s ideas regarding what we now call the “culture wars.” So, in closing, I wish to include a somewhat lengthy quote from The Playbook which, in my opinion, sums up Shapiro’s thoughts fairly succinctly. I would encourage any and all to get a copy of this book and read ALL of it. I believe that it will make you think, assuming that you actually wish to do so.
It’s hard to imagine what America would be like today had support for the Federal Theatre continued and the Dies Committee not been renewed. Counterfactual history is best left to novelists. But a more vibrant theatrical culture extending across the land might well have led to a more informed citizenry, and by extension, a more equitable and resilient democracy. What happened instead was that Martin Dies begat Senator Joseph McCarthy, who begat Roy Cohn, who begat Donald Trump, who begat the horned “QAnon Shaman,” who from the dais of the Senate on January 6, 2021, thanked his fellow insurrectionists at the Capitol “for allowing us to get rid of the Communists, the globalists, and the traitors within our government.”
In the aftermath of that attack on the Capitol, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered theaters and put many actors and writers out of work, there was talk of resurrecting the federal writers’ and theater projects. On the eighty-sixth anniversary of the establishment of the WPA, Democrats Ted W. Lieu of California and Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico urged fellow members of the House to pass a “21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act.” At much the same time, hopeful articles–with American Theatre optimistically asking, “So What Could a 'New Federal Theatre Project’ Actually Look Like?”—began calling for the return of a Federal Theatre as well. But these efforts have found no traction. Their timing could not have been worse, for culture warriors in Congress, in state legislatures, even in once-benign community schoolboards, were turning time and again to the Dies playbook to secure power and challenge progressive initiatives, including anything having to do with the arts or America’s racial reckoning.
Of late, the Dies playbook has once again been employed in culture-war attacks on theater, this time in America’s schools. The New York Times reported in July 2023 that productions of such popular high school plays as the musical Oklahoma! (in which a character says the word “damn”) and August Wilson’s Fences (objectionable because it has no White characters), as well as plays that explore same-sex love, have been attacked and censored from Florida to Oregon, with objections “coming largely from right-leaning parents and school officials.” Staging Chekhov’s Three Sisters has been nixed in Chattanooga, Tennessee (since it deals with adultery), while in Lansing, Kansas, students are not even allowed to study, let alone stage, The Laramie Project, a play about the murder of a gay student, Matthew Shepard. In a 2023 Education Theatre Association survey, 85 percent of American theater teachers expressed concern about censorship. In Florida, a newly minted law has led to A Midsummer Night’s Dream being pulled from middle school libraries and classrooms, while Romeo and Juliet will now be taught in snippets, to avoid falling afoul of legislation targeting “sexual conduct.” The clash between the playbooks of Martin Dies and Hallie Flanagan continues to resonate across the land, with lessons for both the right and the left, and consequences for us all.
From pp. 266—268 of The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy, and the making of a Culture War by James Shapiro
I hope to return soon with my mind on happier subjects, but recent developments, and the publication of Shapiro’s book have gotten me to thinking “…too much. Such men are dangerous ….” I expect to return in a couple of weeks.
🖖🏼 LLAP,
Dr. B
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