The Pro-Democracy Case for a National Theater

President Donald Trump enacted cuts to federal arts funding and targeted national cultural institutions. During the Depression, the Works Progress Administration created the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) to employ out-of-work theater professionals and bring plays to a broad public. From 1935 to 1939 the FTP produced touring and often free performances enjoyed by about 30 million people, many of them first-time theatergoers. FTP productions explored progressive themes including racially integrated casting, radical political possibilities, and warnings about democratic collapse. The project attracted scrutiny from the House Un-American Activities Committee and became a political scapegoat despite consuming a very small portion of WPA funds.

"Earlier this year, as President Donald Trump engaged in a spree of cuts to federal arts funding, alongside partisan assaults on national cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center, I found myself thinking about the Depression-era origins of government-funded art in the United States. During a time of economic and social strife, Washington responded by investing in the arts-even if it resulted in work that made some Americans uncomfortable."

"The Federal Theatre Project, an arm of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, may have been the closest thing the country ever had to a true national theater. From 1935 to 1939, it engaged out-of-work actors, writers, directors, and stagehands across the country to produce plays, many of them free, that toured the U.S. and were enjoyed by some 30 million citizens, a majority of whom had never seen a live play before."

"Some productions involved racially integrated casting; others advanced radical visions of the country's future, such as the possibility of a female president. Still others warned of the rapidity with which democracy could give way to dictatorship. In a dark American era plagued by Jim Crow and rampant poverty, the plays of the FTP tended to engage frankly with some of the grimmer American truths."

"Naturally, the House Un-American Activities Committee -which was formed to find and punish Communist influence everywhere-suspected plenty of it here. And one congressman, Representative Martin Dies of Texas, saw the FTP as a useful scapegoat in a crusade against any culture that was critical of America's absolute goodness. Such a campaign was an opportunity for a particularly cynical type of politician to gain power and influence. Never mind that Dies's target consumed less than 1 percent of the WPA budge"

Read at The Atlantic