American History / Theater & Performance / African American Studies
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Voices
from the Federal Theatre
Voices from the Federal Theatre ties-in with the Fall 2003 television special for public broadcasting "Who Killed the Federal Theatre: An Investigation" hosted by Judd Hirsch and coproduced by Schwartz with the Educational Film Center.
"Chicago had a big Republic Steel plant on the Southside. Memorial Day in 1937, the strikers had a picnic on those grounds. There was fried chicken, potato salad, women, kids, songs, baseball, and there was some cops there. . . . Someone threw a stone, and you know cops started shooting, shot ten guys in the back, and they killed those ten guys. Here's where the Federal Theatre came in. Cradle Will Rock was about a steel strike. Cradle Will Rock was metaphorical, a pro-union play and was considered evolutionary and outrageous. So that's the kind of stuff we used to do."—Studs Terkel "I was in Macbeth. I played one of the witches. I also remember so many fights in the lobby about having people of black skin play Shakespearean shows. If it was a maid's role go ahead, but if it was something like that from the classics. . . . Mr. Welles would raise hell if anybody was in the least nasty to me or tried to ignore me or tried to confuse me. Orson Welles was something else I'm telling you."—Rosetta LeNoire "The Federal Theatre was a part of a movement in America to put people to work. Among the unemployed people, as well as mechanics and metal workers, were actors and artists. And this wonderful idea to put them to work in the cultural field was such a big moment for America—for education . . . for culture—that we still mourn the loss."—Jules Dassin "In the Depression, it was all but impossible for a Left writer not to think of the act of writing as a fulcrum for social change."—Arthur Miller
An appendix is available that provides important additional material. Voices Before Congress: Hearings before the Committee on Patents, House of Representatives of the Seventy-Fifth Congress, Third Session, February 7-11, 1938 A presskit is available for Voices
from the Federal Theatre by following these links. |
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Bonnie Nelson Schwartz is a producer for the Broadway stage, film and
television. She has worked on more than 100 plays, films, television
programs, and concert specials worldwide. Bonnie Nelson Schwartz
is a producer in theater, film, and television. She has worked
on more than one hundred plays, films, television programs, specials,
and concerts in Washington, D.C., New York, and London. On Broadway
she coproduced Pack of Lies, starring Rosemary Harris
and Patrick McGoohan; Ian McKellan: Acting Shakespeare; Jerome
Kern Goes to Hollywood; and Rodgers and Hammerstein's State
Fair with the Theatre Guild. Her off-Broadway credits include
Dylan Thomas: Return Journey, directed by Anthony Hopkins,
and Babalooney. Ms. Schwartz is the creator and original
producer of Washington, D.C.'s Helen Hayes Awards. She produced
the Atlanta portion of the closing ceremonies for the 1992 Olympic
Games in Barcelona. For the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, she cocreated
and produced The Olympic Woman, a multimedia exhibition,
with book and videos, on the history of women in the Olympic
Games. Recent productions include Give My Regards to Broadway:
125 Years of the Musical Theatre at Carnegie Hall; the London
production of Panbeaters, a play with music; and In
Concert against Hate: A Tribute to the Heroes of 9/11 with
the National Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Schwartz is currently coproducing
an independent feature film in South Africa, based on Nobel laureate
Nadine Gordimer's book My Son's Story, and a television
special, Harlem in Paris.
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