Download or read book The Federal Theatre Project Collection written by Library of Congress. Manuscript Division and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre written by Rena Fraden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-06-28 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1930s, the Work Progress Administration funded a massive Federal Theatre Project in America's major urban centres, presenting hundreds of productions, some of the most popular and memorable of which were produced in the highly controversial and avant garde 'Negro Units'. This experiment in government-supported culture brought to the forefront one of the central problems in American democratic culture - the representation of racial difference. Those in the profession quickly discovered inescapable ideological responsibilities attending any sort of show, whether apparently entertaining or political in nature. Exploring the liberal idealism of the thirties and the critical debates in black journals over the role of an African American theatre, Fraden also looks at the obstacles facing black playwrights, audiences, and actors in a changing milieu.

Download or read book The Furious Improvisation written by Susan Quinn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the WPA's Federal Theater Project in the 1930s traces the transformation of the Roosevelt administration relief effort into a platform for some of performing art's most inventive and controversial achievements.

Download or read book Waiting for Lefty written by Clifford Odets and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 1962 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: The action of the play is comprised of a series of varied, imaginatively conceived episodes, which blend into a powerful and stirring mosaic. The opening scene is a hiring hall where a union leader (obviously in the pay of the bosses) is trying to convince a committee of workers (who are waiting for their leader, Lefty, to arrive) not to strike. This is followed by a moving confrontation between a discouraged taxi driver, who cannot earn enough to live on, and his angry wife, who wants him to show some backbone and stand up to his employer; a revealing scene between a scheming boss and the young worker who refuses to spy on his fellow employees; a sad/funny episode centering on a young cabbie and his would-be bride, who lack the wherewithal to get married; a disturbing scene involving a senior doctor and the underpaid young intern (a labor activist) whom the doctor has been ordered to discharge; and, finally, a return to the union hall where the workers, learning that Lefty has been gunned down by the powers-that-be, resolve at last to stand up for their rights and to strike-and to stay off their jobs until their grievances are finally heard and acted upon by those who have so cynically exploited and misused them.

Download or read book The Federal Theatre Project in Los Angeles written by Stacy Claire Brightman and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book America s Longest Run written by Andrew Davis and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America&’s Longest Run: A History of the Walnut Street Theatre traces the history of America&’s oldest theater. The Philadelphia landmark has been at or near the center of theatrical activity since it opened, as a circus, on February 2, 1809. This book documents the players and productions that appeared at this venerable house and the challenges the Walnut has faced from economic crises, changing tastes, technological advances, and competition from new media. The Walnut&’s history is a classic American success story. Built in the early years of the nineteenth century, the Walnut responded to the ever-changing tastes and desires of the theatergoing public. Originally operated as a stock company, the Walnut has offered up every conceivable form of entertainment&—pageantry and spectacle, opera, melodrama, musical theater, and Shakespeare. It escaped the wrecking ball during the Depression by operating as a burlesque house, a combination film and vaudeville house, and a Yiddish theater, before becoming the Philadelphia headquarters for the Federal Theatre Project. Because Philadelphia is located so close to New York City, the Walnut has served as a tryout house for many Broadway-bound shows, including A Streetcar Named Desire, The Diary of Anne Frank, and A Raisin in the Sun. Today, the Walnut operates as a nonprofit performing arts center. It is one of the most successful producing theaters in the country, with more than 350,000 attending performances each year.

Download or read book The Federal Theatre Project written by Barry Witham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-25 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2003 book provides a detailed examination of the operations of the US Federal Theatre Project in the decade of the 1930s.

Download or read book Contested Will written by James Shapiro and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-19 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

Download or read book Posters of the WPA written by Christopher DeNoon and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These posters were designed for other federal agencies, and as travel posters, education and civic activity posters, health and safety posters, and propaganda posters for World War II.

Download or read book Big White Fog written by Theodore Ward and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Real Life Drama written by Wendy Smith and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real Life Drama is the classic history of the remarkable group that revitalized American theater in the 1930s by engaging urgent social and moral issues that still resonate today. Born in the turbulent decade of the Depression, the Group Theatre revolutionized American arts. Wendy Smith's dramatic narrative brings the influential troupe and its founders to life once again, capturing their joys and pains, their triumphs and defeats. Filled with fresh insights into the towering personalities of Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Stella and Luther Adler, Karl Malden, and Lee J. Cobb, among many others, Real Life Drama chronicles a passionate community of idealists as they opened a new frontier in theater.

Download or read book Imagining Medea written by Rena Fraden and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-12-30 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ain't no Dreamgirls," Rhodessa Jones warns participants in the Medea Project, the theater program for incarcerated women that she founded and directs. Her expectations are grounded in reality, tempered, for example, by the fact that women are the fastest growing population in U.S. prisons. Still, Jones believes that by engaging incarcerated women in the process of developing and staging dramatic works based on their own stories, she can push them toward tapping into their own creativity, confronting the problems that landed them in prison, and taking control of their lives. Rena Fraden chronicles the collaborative process of transforming incarcerated women's stories into productions that incorporate Greek mythology, hip-hop music, dance, and autobiography. She captures a diverse array of voices, including those of Jones and other artists, the sheriff and prison guards, and, most vividly, the women themselves. Through compelling narrative and thoughtful commentary, Fraden investigates the Medea Project's blend of art and activism and considers its limits and possibilities for enacting social change. Rhodessa Jones is co-artistic director of the San Francisco-based performance company Cultural Odyssey and founder of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women. An award-winning performer, she has taught at the Yale School of Drama and the New College of California.

Download or read book Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal written by Kate Dossett and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated "Negro Units" set up under the FTP, African American artists took on theatre work usually reserved for whites, staged black versions of "white" classics, and developed radical new dramas. In this fresh history of the FTP Negro Units, Kate Dossett examines what she calls the black performance community—a broad network of actors, dramatists, audiences, critics, and community activists—who made and remade black theatre manuscripts for the Negro Units and other theatre companies from New York to Seattle. Tracing how African American playwrights and troupes developed these manuscripts and how they were then contested, revised, and reinterpreted, Dossett argues that these texts constitute an archive of black agency, and understanding their history allows us to consider black dramas on their own terms. The cultural and intellectual labor of black theatre artists was at the heart of radical politics in 1930s America, and their work became an important battleground in a turbulent decade.

Download or read book The Community Performance Reader written by Petra Kuppers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Community Performance: A Reader is the first book to provide comprehensive teaching materials for this significant part of the theatre studies curriculum. It brings together core writings and critical approaches to community performance work, presenting practices in the UK, USA, Australia and beyond. Offering a comprehensive anthology of key writings in the vibrant field of community performance, spanning dance, theatre and visual practices, this Reader uniquely combines classic writings from major theorists and practitioners such as Augusto Boal, Paolo Freire, Dwight Conquergood and Jan Cohen Cruz, with newly commissioned essays that bring the anthology right up to date with current practice. This book can be used as a stand-alone text, or together with its companion volume, Community Performance: An Introduction, to offer an accessible and classroom-friendly introduction to the field of community performance.

Download or read book Arena the History of the Federal Theatre written by Hallie Flanagan and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sounds of the New Deal written by Peter Gough and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At its peak the Federal Music Project (FMP) employed nearly 16,000 people who reached millions of Americans through performances, composing, teaching, and folksong collection and transcription. In Sounds of the New Deal, Peter Gough explores how the FMP's activities in the West shaped a new national appreciation for the diversity of American musical expression. From the onset, administrators and artists debated whether to represent highbrow, popular, or folk music in FMP activities. Though the administration privileged using "good" music to educate the public, in the West local preferences regularly trumped national priorities and allowed diverse vernacular musics to be heard. African American and Hispanic music found unprecedented popularity while the cultural mosaic illuminated by American folksong exemplified the spirit of the Popular Front movement. These new musical expressions combined the radical sensibilities of an invigorated Left with nationalistic impulses. At the same time, they blended traditional patriotic themes with an awareness of the country's varied ethnic musical heritage and vast--but endangered--store of grassroots music.

Download or read book The Federal Theatre Project Collection written by Library of Congress. Manuscript Division and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: