Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre

by Rena Fraden

Overview

During the 1930s the Work Progress Administration funded the Federal Theater Project to sustain unemployed theatrical workers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major urban centers, employing over 12,000 people and presenting countless productions. Some of the most popular and memorable of these works, such as the "voodoo" Macbeth and the "swing" Mikado, were produced in the so-called Negro Units, whose story is narrated in this book. Particular focus is given to problems of representation in a community and in an era trying to define what was African American, what was Negro, what was American, what was peculiar, and what was universal in the arts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521443593
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/29/1994
Series:	Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture , #81
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.94(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. A new deal (or not) for culture; 2. Critical directions: toward a national negro theatre; 3. Producing new dramas: the politics of choice; 4. The unpredictable audience; 5. Acting properly; Afterword; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Fraden's active yet balanced voice makes the work approachable for the casual reader yet her meticulous exploration of cultural and political frictions inside and beyond the project represents a significant contribution to the study of Negro FT making it required reading for any serious scholar of not only the Federal Theatre Project but of the American theatre scene of the 1930's." Theatre Studies, Vol. 41

"This major work is complex and scholarly. A critical and historical analysis of the purpose, plays, audiences and actors of the Federal Theatre of 1935-39, Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre is compelling....useful to theatre students (and others) because of the rich and copious notes." Glenda E. Gill, Theatre Survey

"Rena Fraden's 'Blueprint for a Black Federal Theatre' will also be a useful textbook for teaching African American theatre history. Fraden has distinguished her work from that of her major forerunners....'Blueprint' substantially enhance[s] our understanding of African American theatre and will enliven classroom discussions with the cogent and timely arguments [it] present[s]." Joni jones, Drama Review

From the Publisher