72. Encore Episode: Philadelphia's "Negro Unit" of the Federal Theatre Project

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Hello Everyone. This is an Encore Episode, which is to say it’s a repeat of an earlier episode that we released two years ago, back in Season One. But because the topic fit so nicely with where we are in our current Season Three - right at the end of the Great Depression years, and before the beginning of World War Two, I thought it was a perfect time to bring it out again, especially for all of our new listeners and recent subscribers who may not have had time to go through our back catalog.

However, I have edited down the sound file of this conversation from the original, in order to focus it more tightly on the topic of the WPA Theatre Project. If you want to hear the original in its entirety, go back to Episode 32.

So, this is a conversation between me and two other people. The first is Jonathan Shandell, a professor of Theater at Arcadia University and the author of a January 2022 article in the journal Theater History Studies entitled "Caricatured, Marginalized, Betrayed".  The article examines the history of the Philadelphia "Negro Unit" of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s - specifically the history of three plays produced by the FTP at the Walnut Street Theatre. 

Also in the conversation is my dear friend Jerrell Henderson, a theater director, puppeteer and teacher currently living in Chicago. A native Philadelphian, he has devoted much time to studying and writing about Black theater history and Black musical theater. He is the curator and creator of black_theatre-vinyl_archive on Instagram.

So, I’ve jumped ahead about ten minutes in the original interview, and we begin with me asking Jonathan Shandell about his recently published paper.

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Peter Schmitz
. . . but we got in touch with each other because the Free Library of Philadelphia, their Theater Collection in the Rare Book Department, was doing a display about the WPA theater and the Federal Theatre Project. That and specifically, there was a very interesting display of material about this play called Jericho, which I had heard nothing about. So, I posted this image that I found, and you immediately replied and said, “Hey, I just . . . I'm writing an article about it.” Had you used the Free Library’s theater collection for your work on this article at all? 

Jonathan Shandell
Not this article, but I had been there as I was starting to delve into Hedgerow, but I didn't get there and a lot of the research that I ended up doing for this article was done during COVID. So, when libraries were closed I had been able to access.  . . 

Peter Schmitz
Right, right, that was . . 

Jonathan Shandell
 . .  some historic newspapers electronically via databases. And I did a trip to the Library of Congress and also to the Performing Arts Library in New York. So that was where I had gotten all the materials that . .   and I, except for one problem with an article which I'm sure we'll talk about.  I felt like I had covered a lot of the newspaper archival material that I know is at the Free Library. So, I'm sure there's more there that I missed. But that was kind of how the research was done for this. 

Peter Schmitz
Right. There's always more. We always miss something. So for . .  let me, for our listeners, for us in the theater history world, the Federal Theatre Project, sort of a familiar old friend, one that we always cover in any survey of American Theater History. And for those of our listeners who may be less familiar with the topic, can I ask you, Jonathan, to just give us a brief rundown of exactly what it was? If we can do it in 30 words or less, that would be great. 

Jonathan Shandell
Sure. Well, the Federal Theatre Project was a part of the New Deal. Part of the Works Progress Administration, which was a part of the bureaucracy of the New Deal. And it was really designed as a relief project. It was designed as a project to help put people back to work and it employed thousands of not only theater professionals, but other people as well who could work in associated areas, so technicians and carpenters who could build sets, marketing and publicity professionals who could market the shows and document the process and take photographs and writers who could go out even if they had never written plays before, they could be hired to go out and collect material that could be incorporated into scripts. So . . .  

Peter Schmitz
But as far as part of the overall WPA, it was really only one percent of its Budget, right?  

Jonathan Shandell 
That’s right. 

Peter Schmitz
Usually when we think of the WPA, we think of dams and roads and bridges that were being built. And when people found out about the Federal Theatre Project, they didn't realize the government put that much money into it, like, well, they really didn't. It was a minuscule effort, but significant at the time. 

Jonathan Shandell
But . . and in comparison to the rest of what we know about American theater history, to have so much Federal subsidy of theatrical activity, which is something very common in Europe and other parts of the world but unheard of before the Federal Theatre Project in the United States. It was this kind of golden era of about four to five years, where the government was really funding this explosion of productions in a whole bunch of areas. The “Negro Units,” as they called them, was one area where they actually developed new plays by African American writers and looked to employ African American artists. But then there also . . .  there were other divisions as well. There was a children's theater unit, there was a circus unit. There was a traveling caravan theater unit - in addition to more conventional professional productions. So, it really created this very multifaceted outpouring of theatrical activity in this very discrete four- and five-year period when it was funded. And then in 1939, the funding was, almost overnight, yanked away. It was this sort of Unicorn moment for the American theater. 

And a lot of what became influential on stage and in Hollywood in the years that followed in the 40s and 50s and beyond, so many artists and writers and scenic techniques got developed and introduced to the American public during that time. 

Peter Schmitz
If you're a theater historian, New York is often what's referenced is the involvement Orson Welles and John Houseman and the quote-unquote “Voodoo Macbeth.” But what's almost never mentioned - and I bring this up to both of you gentlemen - is the Philadelphia aspect of the Federal Theatre Project. 

New York has tended to take up most of the air in the conversation, and sometimes they'll be sort of: “Oh, by the way, they did this in other places, too.” It was a countrywide effort. Everywhere - in Seattle and Hartford and Boston and Saint Louis and Chicago especially - but Philadelphia is often given short shrift. So, Jerrell, you have your own specific history as a Black Philadelphia theater artist.  

Jerrell Henderson
Mmm-hmmm 

Peter Schmitz
What in particular would you like to say? When you were growing up was there any reference or specific knowledge about what had happened in the 1930s that was available to you, or was that something that you just had to find out much later. 

Jerrell Henderson
That's a really easy question to answer: “No.” I am just now - with the introduction of your e-mail a few days ago to Jonathan's work learning about what's happening in Philadelphia at that time. Because what you said is right. I've been studying American theater history for just under or over fifteen years at this point, but most of that is in New York. I don't know a lot about my own city's history in terms of theater. What I know comes from Freedom Theater, which really dates back to the 60s, right, late 60s going into the early 1970s.

Peter Schmitz
Right.

Jerrell Henderson
So that is immediate theater history. That's contemporary theater history, but it, you know, it doesn't delve back that far. 

And I worked at the Walnut Street Theatre for nine years. So my understanding of, kind of, the extent of Philadelphia theater history comes from the Walnut, which is predominantly white. 

Peter Schmitz
Right. And it was, it was in the 1930s, too, when this - the Federal Theatre Project, for a brief period, inhabited the Walnut. And there  . .  now therein lies the rub. 

Peter Schmitz
Right. It was at a different period of the building's history when it was sort of available for rental, and it didn't have anything going on. That was during the Depression. The Walnut, like many other places, was desperate for business. And the owners, when the Federal Theatre Project approached it, apparently and said, well, can we put on shows here, were like, “Please, anything.” They were desperate for the work. So Jonathan. 

Jonathan Shandell
Yeah. 

Peter Schmitz
I  . . . looking over the  . . . as I look into this topic and I look over a lot of Philadelphia newspaper archives from the late 1930s, I noticed that the Federal Theatre Project was much condescended to in its day, and we've spoken already. How Philadelphia has been condescended to, but with even the City of Philadelphia, the Federal Theatre Project was like, “Oh yeah, these people, they're on relief, and they're doing a show. They can't get any work anywhere else.” Was that your impression of how often it was treated by local theater artists and critics? 

Jonathan Shandell
At times, certainly part of the Federal Theatre Projects’ charter or its operating rules were that a certain percentage of those that were employed had to be out of work, right, had to be had to qualify for relief. And so, that sometimes barred those who were regularly working and regularly gaining prestige in the professional theater, from being hired - even though it was good work, and it was dependable and there was a lot of money behind it. And this is not . . .  What I'm saying now is not necessarily Philadelphia local - but just sort of around the country. It did at times get known as a place for people who are otherwise unemployed, and that might have compromised its prestige. 

Peter Schmitz
Right. 

Jonathan Shandell
However, the other side of that is that because of the energy that was brought to it, starting with its leader, Hallie Flanagan, who was this very visionary experimental theater artist. And some of the things that she encouraged, all of the various divisions to do, became very influential, became very groundbreaking in a lot of what it did. Unfortunately, the most kind of visible and most groundbreaking activity seems not to have occurred here in our city, right? But in some of the other major cities - in New York and Chicago, in Seattle . . .  I think the judgment at the time and as far as the information I can gather is that the activities that the Philadelphia unit was doing seemed to be pretty derivative. 

Peter Schmitz
As you begin your article, you talk about how there was a Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project that had been set up, and it was at that point in a suburb of Philadelphia. It was in Drexel Hill, and you mentioned it at the Drexel Hill Playhouse. And I had to look that up. Like what? Drexel Hill players. I've not heard of that. It's a beautiful building, but it's still - it's a bowling alley. Now it is. . .  It was. . . .  It's become. It's called the Playhouse Bowling Alley. When you begin your article, you say they've been doing what seemed to you derivative of sort of minstrelsy and minstrel shows plus they were way out on the edges of the city for some reason. Were you ever able to figure out why that was? 

Jonathan Shandell
No, there's not a lot of information about that that I could find. 

Peter Schmitz
I have my suspicions and I haven't found definite evidence, but I think it's because of the connection with the Hedgerow! Just looking at the names . . .  I mean just look at the names of people who are working on the shows as I can find the newspaper articles, I often find, “oh, that person was working at the Hedgerow earlier.” They were working with Jasper Deeter, which was one of the few integrated theater companies and working anywhere. They often had interesting professional experience, but one of the things about the WPA theater project is that supposedly they were supposed to be giving jobs to people who had formerly had work, but now needed work. And often Hallie Flanagan had to say, especially with the Negro Theatre Units. “Well, these people haven't been able to get work.” That's been the point, especially technicians and designers at stagehands. They she had to carve out, like, a special allowance. 

They give people experience, even if they didn't have professional credits, and I think one of the reasons that they were out there in Drexel Hill was that there were some people with professional credits because they had been working with the Hedgerow. Which might explain why that particular part of the suburbs had been picked first. Maybe there was a community of people there, but . . .  

Jonathan Shandell
And to bolster that theory a little bit - from my earlier research in Hedgerow. Something that I discovered was that when the Federal Theatre project was first set up in Philadelphia, Deeter was identified as the one who would be the director - the local director - of the Philadelphia Unit. 

Peter Schmitz
And why didn't he? Did you ever find out? 

Jonathan Shandell
He did for a while, or at least on paper, he did for a while, but it seems he didn't do very much in that job. 

Peter Schmitz
That, oh, I see. 

Jonathan Shandell
And then was eventually replaced. So perhaps he was running his own repertory company and still quite active, and the Hedgerow was one of the few local theaters that was active throughout the Depression. And so perhaps that's where his energy and his wishes were. And he was then replaced soon after that. 

Peter Schmitz
And he was replaced with a very significant person in American theater history, who was James Light. Who was James Light and why was he brought in? 

Jonathan Shandell
Well, James Light was a New York-based director and he was actually a former associate of Deeter through a company called the Provincetown Players, which was quite big in the 1920s. Since the Provincetown had folded in the late 20s, James Light had become a celebrated New York director and in fact had worked with Paul Robeson and Charles Gilpin, and had become known as a progressive white theater artist who was interested in integrating the stage. 

Now, that is very much conditioned by what race relations were like in the 30s, right? So we wouldn't look at it today and think that it was particularly enlightened, but in the context of the 1930s, he was. 

Peter Schmitz
Which was a very segregated era. 
 
Jonathan Shandell
Yes, absolutely.

Peter Schmitz
Jim Crow was manifest everywhere. I mean explicitly in some places, and implicitly in most of Philadelphia. There wasn’t . . One of the things I've noticed when I'm reading about the history of the the Hedgerow theater, is that they had integrated audience space and sometimes with a very small space and and often white theater goers would find themselves shoulder to shoulder with a black patron and say “I'm not sitting here anymore.” And Jasper Deeter but stop the show and say “OK, all right, so you want to leave? Let's  . .  we have time. You, you, have your freedom. My friends are staying. You can go. And we'll begin again once you've made your exit.” Which must have been an astounding innovation in, you know, the theater going experience for many people in Philadelphia at the time. And when I look over . . .  I was looking the other day at the archives of the Philadelphia Tribune, which is the longtime leading African American newspaper in the city. 

And if you look . . .  follow through all the headlines day by day, most of the stories are about Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching in the South, discrimination against African American professionals in the city and and elsewhere. So, there was a lot to struggle against. That was the context as well going into this. So when we say there was a Negro Theatre Unit, it sounds like they were segregating the artists from the white artists. But in fact, the Federal Theatre Project seems to have been looking for ways to integrate them together. And one of the ways was finding people like John Houseman like Orson Welles, like James Light, who had had experience and integrating multiracial casts and theater artists. So that's why he was brought in, as far as I can understand.

So, Jonathan, tell us about the first show that James Light and the Negro Theatre Unit brought to the Walnut Street Theater. It was entitled Jericho. Now this is the play that no one will know because this is the only production that it ever had. What was Jericho? 

Jonathan Shandell
Jericho was a play that I could not find a whole lot of information about - where it came from, about the playwright, whose name was H.L. Fishel. Jericho is the title character, and he is a boxer who is the son of a Southern preacher, and he is sort of enticed to come North, to make his fortunes as a boxer and is seduced by a temptress, and they attempt to bribe him to throw a big fight. And then he refuses and he gets in trouble with the gangster and he gets to go back and hide with his father down South, who, who as a fire and brimstone preacher has rejected him and rejected the sinning ways of modern society. And just from that very short description, I hope it's sort of clear that it's a play with a lot of cliches, a lot of stereotypical tropes of the era. And so . .   and kind of sensationalized but not particularly profound. 

Peter Schmitz
It started right. . .  It's sort of like Golden Boy meets Porgy and Bess meets, you know, The Green Pastures. A lot of, you know, ‘authentic dialects.’ And I've found the - as I'm sure you have. I found the text of the play in the WPA archives. It's available online. You can find these things so easily now. God bless them. And you start reading it. . .  

And you just start . . .  you just go: “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh-oh. . . . Oh, my goodness!” Because the dialect work that Fishel wrote is so thick and caricatured that you can imagine, you know, James Light handing this script to all the actors in the company. And them just throwing up their hands, saying, “Well, we don't talk like that - what the hell is this?” 

And yet that didn't seem to have been the reaction. Everyone seems to have thrown themselves into it, and they staged it with a great deal of commitment. The reviews are sensational. Everyone said: “This is fantastic. This is exciting. This is ripping the lid off the truth of the African American experience.” 

Yes? What do you think about that, Jerrell? 

Jerrell Henderson
But yeah, you have to look at it in the context in which it came out. You know, when I read The Green Pastures now - you know, my husband, who's a Chinese immigrant who's reading, you know, all the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays because that's how he wants to understand American culture. You know, he reads it, and it's . .  it was one of the most painful reads because of that three-act play, written by a white person. And it . . .  just . . .  it becomes reflective of I guess what was necessary. You have to remember that when they saw Jericho or when people were seeing Green Pastures, minstrel shows were still being performed. So, compared it to a minstrel show Jericho is an evolution in terms of character. You know what I mean? And a more nuanced version of African American . . .  how African Americans relate to each other. 

You also have to remember that part of the issue with how African Americans are seen in media comes down to the amount. . .  there's less variety. So when you look at a young man who decides to be a wrestler from a blue collar background. And the mother or the father doesn't want them to do that. And so they're disowned and they fall into sin and vice, and especially by a woman - because we're also living in a ridiculously misogynistic society - it's a very common theme. That's not only done by African Americans. However, within the larger so-called white society, you also had stories about billionaires and bankers and teachers, whereas in terms of how African Americans are seen in media, it's not that varied. So that's all you see. And so that becomes a truth that then becomes associated with African Americans, especially the trope of Jericho - it caught my eye.

It reminded me of Trouble In Mind because the father encourages the son to go to jail and I don't know, especially at that time, when “going to jail” could mean that you don't make it through the. Because there's a lynch mob forming. For a father to encourage a son for a moral reason, to put himself in physical, immediate physical danger is without question the result of, like popular white theory at that time. It is false - and that's the argument that's made, and they play that was written 20 to 30 years later, Trouble In Mind by Alice Childress, she points out that as well as what you said earlier in terms of dialect, you see the African American characters in Trouble In Mind, working out how to say Negro dialect cause it doesn't make sense to them, either. 

Peter Schmitz
Well, when I first read it, I when I read that - when I read through the text of Jericho I said: “Oh, this is the play that Alice Childress. . . this was the play-within-the-play of Trouble In Mind!” But it turns out that wasn't the only one like it. There were dozens and dozens of plays like that. And the trope of a parent encouraging their son to give themselves up. 

Jerrell Henderson
Yeah, yeah. No, it's very common. Yeah. 

Peter Schmitz
Was  . . I mean, multiple plays, yeah. 

Jerrell Henderson
Because we're so moral, we're so moral. And we're so righteous. And and and in that way the slaughter of African Americans almost becomes Biblical, right? Because African Americans are willing to suffer more than any other group of people are willing to suffer. Our capacity for forgiveness is so much higher. Couldn't we just be more like the Negroes? Isn't it so amazing that we have the Negro? So that the “We” which is again white predominant culture don't have to change? Right? Don't have to interrogate themselves or their actions because the Negro will forgive. “The Negro is amazing. The Negro has given us food and music to dance to. They have never held any hard feelings against us.” You see how all of these ideas of what American - actual American mythology, is - how it seeps into the way that stories get told, and the way that characters interact with each other. 

White America gives itself away, and so when Jericho you see this reflection and you know that there's reality to it. Not because I said so or because any of us said so, but because it's reflected in the script that's written almost 30 years later by an African American woman. 

Peter Schmitz
Thank you. Thank you. The next play that the Nego Theater [Unit] brought was One Third of a Nation. Now, that had been done elsewhere. And again, you often  . . . in theater history textbooks, they often post the poster of One Third of a Nation. It was a “Living Newspaper” play. What was a Living Newspaper play, Jonathan? 

Jonathan Shandell
Yeah. So One Third of a Nation was actually arguably the most successful play that the Federal Theatre Project ever put on, and one division of the FTP was dedicated to developing what they call these Living Newspaper plays where they would actually take material from present-day headlines and news stories and then dramatize it and string it together in order to engage audiences in a discussion about current events and about society. And it was a very idealistic idea that theater could be the public square where important social issues and differences of opinion could be engaged and dramatized and worked through. 

And there were a number of these that were done across the country on various issues. You mentioned the play about syphilis. That also was done and there were, there were many of them and they were very, very successful. 

Peter Schmitz
And was useful for the WPA because they often needed large casts  . .   many small scenes and vignettes, so you could bring a lot of people in, and usually they examine the subject in a series of small scenes and there was usually sort of a loudspeaker where the Voice of Authority. It's like the editorial voice, you know, tying it all together. 

So the One Third of a Nation that they did in Philadelphia was rewritten to incorporate specific Philadelphia stories, is that right? 

Jonathan Shandell
That is correct. So, the play debuted in New York and was very successful in New York and it had been written about New York housing issues. And it was so successful in New York that what Hallie Flanagan, the director of the Federal Theatre Project, decided to do was actually commissioned local writers in other cities to take the structure of what had been done in New York, and then adapt it to reflect local headlines and local conditions. 

And so, the Philadelphia based team of writers took several months and took the original New York script and looked around for local equivalent problems and concerns that then they could kind of integrate into a new version of the script. And that's what played in Philadelphia. So it was making reference to places and events that audiences would have some familiarity with. For the opening scene of the Philadelphia version of the play, they used as a hook to grab audiences in and start to investigate housing conditions, a tenement collapse that happened a few years earlier in an African American neighborhood within Philadelphia. 

Peter Schmitz
The Seventh Ward, the famous Seventh Ward, right?

Jonathan Shandell
That's right. That's right. Yeah. And several people died. And it sort of exposed deplorable housing conditions in the 7th ward and issues of inequity in Philadelphia. Right. And so they decided to use that and make that the opening scene, the way that  the play began. And so, in order to do that, they actually needed a large group of African American performers to create the scene with people walking by on the street and the mother who lost her child in the building collapse, so that then they could kind of begin the play. So, using that story demanded something that hadn't been done to the same degree in other cities, which was an integrated cast, for a local production. 

Peter Schmitz
So in other cities this had usually been an all-white production. So, Philadelphia was unique in that respect. 

Jonathan Shandell
It was unique in the way that it was done that there were scenes that were set in an African American neighborhood. In the New York version and other versions, there is one scene that's set in a tenement house with two African American workers who are sharing a bed, and one works the day shift and sleeps at night, and then the other works the night shift and sleeps during the day. And that scene is present in all the versions of the script. So it wasn't . . It wasn't totally new, but it was new to a different degree. 

Peter Schmitz
OK. And then and then they tried . . .  the play was supposed to begin with watching the house fall down on stage. And you had a . . .  there was a story about that . . .  because it got to opening night, and they discovered something about the old Walnut St. Theatre stage . . 

Jonathan Shandell
That's right. So, they designed the set so that the curtain would come up and this row of tenement houses would be visible to the audience. And then the first thing that you would see would be one of these tenement houses actually collapsing on stage with a big sound effect. And that would be this, like, sort of moment of scenic magic that drew the audience in. And it was on the day before Opening Night, when an engineer came in and discovered that the Walnut St. stage couldn't support the weight of the falling scenic debris, so they actually had to - on Opening Night - only use the sound effect and raise the curtain on the set already having collapsed and then the next day they were able to fix it so that they could do it as they designed it. 

Peter Schmitz
Shore up the stage and put some, put some struts underneath. Yeah. So the third show. That was done by the Philadelphia Negro Unit was very different to that and it was called Prelude to Swing. Now this was a musical production. This wasn't the minstrelsy show, this was an entirely a Black cast in this one, or was this an integrated cast as well? 

Jonathan Shandell
It was not entirely Black cast, and in fact even to call it integrated as being a little bit overly generous. So, this was conceived by two artists, one who ran the Dance Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in Philadelphia, and she was a modern dancer, right? Her name is. . .  

Peter Schmitz
Malvina Fried.
 
Jonathan Shandell
 . . . Malvina Fried. And in partnership with an African American writer and theater artist named Carlton Moss, and together they had thought about developing a dance piece that explored the history of African American music, from African music all the way through work, songs, spirituals, through to jazz and swing, which was, you know, sort of contemporary music at the time. So it was going to be this kind of retrospective of African American music interpreted through modern dance. And Carlton Moss wrote a . . . .  .  

Peter Schmitz
 . . . When we say “modern dance,” we mean like Martha Graham style, right? Very modernist, non representational. . . 

Jonathan Shandell
 . . . That's right. Abstract kind of European derived style. So Carlton Moss wrote a script that told that story. And then Malvina Fried put choreography to it. And that was what that piece was all about.

Peter Schmitz
Is this how this  . .  this seems . . It seems to me that I've come across a lot of material which tried to tell a similar story - like Stormy Weather, the movie, right? Doesn't that tell a similar story? “We're gonna tell the whole story of African American music, and we're gonna begin with African rhythms. And we're gonna bring it into the present day.” 

Jerrell Henderson
It's a recurring theme that you see in the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, who wrote, you know, one or two plays. Lanston Hughes. “Don't you want to be free?” All the way up to Bring In Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk with George C Wolfe in the 1990s. 

Peter Schmitz
But even like and, Hughes wasn't always pleased with there's this famous poem “You've taken my Blues” - you know. “And you put them in this thing and the Blues aren't there anymore.” You tried to. 

Jerrell Henderson
Well, there's a difference between when African American artists do it and when white artists do it. It doesn't mean the same thing, even though we may all be reaching for the same thing. So I . . .  but I can't imagine that he was talking about W.E.B. Du Bois when he wrote that poem. He would have been talking about The Green Pastures - Connolly, Mark Connolly. You know what I mean? Or even Gershwin. Anyone who's heard Porgy and Bess can't deny that the music is beautiful. It is the one consistent argument for that show. The music is beautiful. Of course, it's beautiful. Gershwin knew what he was doing, and he wanted to write an ode to African American culture. But no, the whole idea, like . . I'm writing something like that now. You know what I mean? Of journeying through? Absolutely journeying through American history through the guise of an African American lens. But I'm looking at mythology. I'm looking at American - specifically North American mythology. And how we know who we are based on the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories we tell about each other, yeah. 

Peter Schmitz
Well, it seemed when reading the reactions to it, when Jonathan wrote his article, he was able to access through the online database that we were all using in the midst of the pandemic because we couldn't get into actual archives. I had the same issue. He found the review from the and I pulled up the Inquirer and the Philadelphia Inquirer critic is like, “This is wonderful. There's a there's a Negro choir in the orchestra pit, which sings spirituals. And then there's this group of dancers on stage who embody the Spirit of the Music.” And he said everyone was having a great time! This was marvelous.

And you, you made a note that said “I was unable to find a reaction from an African American reviewer.” Because the Philadelphia Tribune . . annoyingly, its archives, which should be online, were missing, like, six months. And somebody just had skipped a box when he was putting them all on [the microfilm]. 

And by the time I read that, it was now the Spring of 2022 and I was thinking, “You know, I know where those microfilms are.” So I went to the Free Library and I went to the Periodicals Room and it was blocked off. It was like they're renovating it, I think: “Oh, well, here we go. Another barrier to historical research. There it is.” But then I went around the corner to the Map Room and they said the Periodical Room was closed. And they said, “Oh yeah, but we can get in!” I said, “what do you mean?” “We can go through that door there. What do you want?” And I said, “Well, I'm looking for the Philadelphia Tribune microfilms from the first half of 1939.”

“OK.” And the guy just got up, disappeared there, came back and brought me this little box, set me up with the microfilm reader. And I was scrolling away, and I happened to find this article!

I'm picking up a piece of paper and he let me print it out. And so they sent the reviewer to see Prelude to Swing. And there was . .  I shared it with you guys. . .  The headline is “Prelude to Swing, New WPA effort, Opens at Walnut.” And the reviewer, a man named Joseph Wooten, says “The latest contribution of the Federal Theatre Project at the Walnut Street Theater on Monday night, the FTP offering was more than a prelude. It was both Prelude and finale to Swing. Highly entertaining production that proved infectious to an otherwise critical audience.” And it ends with: “If Prelude to Swing is nothing more, it parades a wealth of fresh talent, with sincere performances that are most welcome Prelude to Swing, is a must on your theater calendar for the week.” 

So, I was very pleased to find this, Jonathan, I was very pleased to add to your already very interesting research. But what is your reaction? We all might expect a Black reviewer might say you know: “Nice try, guys, but this - all these white dancers dancing to a black choir - What? What are we looking at here?” 

But he seems to have had a marvelous time. Or at least wanted to tell his readers that. What is your reaction? I'm gonna get your reaction, Jerrell. What's your reaction? As the researcher, Jonathan?

Jonathan Shandell
Well, I guess I'm brought back to some of the perspectives that Jerrell shared earlier in our conversation. Anytime you examine these cultural artifacts, there's two different contexts in which you might look at it, right? And one is to look at it in the context of what other opportunities and what other cultural activities are happening at the time. And how does this compare? And I can certainly imagine that a production that features and showcases the history of African American music, with a text by a Black writer that celebrates the kind of persistence and the cultural impact of Black music right up until the present day in the late 30s - where the point was made that the popular music of the era - Swing and Jazz and Big Band - didn't come from nowhere, but actually is traceable back to the the genealogy of African American music. I can imagine that that would be quite exciting and interesting. And a rare opportunity that the wider American culture doesn't normally afford to black artists and black cultural traditions. And the fact that you have this choir and this jazz band who are able to showcase their talents in that right, it's nothing to to dismiss. 

To shift the perspective and kind of think about it from a different point of view, the idea that no African American dancers were included in the troupe. And that this story was told not through African American dance traditions, but through modern dance, which is very abstract and intellectual. And, you know, some, some might say . .  and and kind of cut off from the very traditions that the material of the show was trying to highlight. So, that's a different way to look at it and to think that there was a real missed opportunity for this group of artists to more honestly, realize their ambitions. And I try in the article hopefully successfully right to give at least some consideration to both of those points of view, and to say that there was definitely value to this, and the community's response to all of these productions was partly shows the value that, “hey, there's something here that is new and different and and better than other opportunities that have come along”. And then on the other side to say, “but there's also these problems and these concerns.” 

And again, Jerrell spoke very eloquently to this a few minutes ago about how this material we can look forward in history to a point like the 1950s and beyond, where African American artists feel more empowered to more directly take on this type of representation and say, “Wait a minute, this is what we've accepted as normal for so long. And there are real problems here that are actually limiting and in the most extreme cases, kind of denying the humanity of African Americans under the guise of attempting to celebrate and elevate.” 

Peter Schmitz
What I can see also from the general reactions of the African American reviewers that I found in the Tribune was one that I've seen reflected elsewhere in the literature. That “work is work, and we're so glad to see many of our people getting work and this time and that in the long run, that's to our benefit.” And there's another thing, about a sort of welcoming acceptance by a larger white culture, and I want  . . . Their world is not a monolith. So, there were people with different points of view . .  both of those elements in this particular review from the Tribune saying it's great to see people getting work, and I'm welcoming that white people are actually seeing what we're doing. How do you respond to that? Jerrell is listening - is this familiar to you? 

Jerrell Henderson
Yeah, I mean it  . . . with choices that I've made professionally, with choices that I've seen other people make professionally - oof - I can only speak for myself. One of the questions that I used to ask myself before you know, maybe about five or six years ago was, you know, is “what's more important right now, living my truth or eating?” That's kind of . .  that's the most polite way I can put it with more experience and more privilege. I have to acknowledge that, you know, my options have expanded to which now I feel more comfortable. Writing my truth, you know, knowing that I will, I think I'll be OK. But no, I mean, I spent most of my life navigating survival first. 

And that's I'm speaking specifically about being in the American theater industry and primarily in Philadelphia. That's where I was working. And so I auditioned for things that I didn't particularly care for. I took direction - one of the reasons I became a director was because I got sick of taking direction from white people who were asking me to do things that were diametrically opposed to who I am, how I grew up. Because my performance was reflecting their idea of what it meant to be authentically Black. And again, you know, a different reviewer would have written something else. There were plenty of African Americans were making those critiques then and at that time, speaking from, you know, if I can try to imagine myself in that situation again in the context of then not knowing what I know now, I think that a part of me certainly have been like, “well, if they're Black people on stage singing, it's at the Walnut, it’s in downtown theater. You know what? And our culture is being celebrated.” You know, you don't miss the weirdness of this relationship. Like if it was maybe an integrated group of dancers. OK, that's easier to accept, but all white dancers, man, that's just weird. It's kind of like a more honest minstrel show. You know what I mean? It's like some aspect of white American culture had to evolve, and this is one of the missing links that we never saw before, you know, in between what was meant to see, and what would become what we now call American musical theater. Right. It's bizarre. 

But it's like, cool, right? It's still cool because, again, this is 1939. So in 1939 you can be African American and walk to the wall and up from the 7th Ward and go see a play where your culture’s being celebrated and then go outside and have a, you know, a bottle thrown at your head! You know? So like you take it and try to take things in the context that they were acknowledging those realities. 

Peter Schmitz
Thank you. Thank you. Just to wrap up the story then of what happened with the WPA theater unit? We previously stated that it lasted into the middle of 1939 and so here we are in May of 1939, we're getting to June 1939. Apparently the production of Prelude to Swing was delayed a little bit because Hallie Flanagan came to town and saw a rehearsal and said “You're not ready.” So, she pulled it back a few weeks. But you're now getting into late June 1939 and what's going on, Jonathan, within the American Congress? 

Jonathan Shandell
Well, there had been hearings in Washington, DC for about a year for something called the Dies Commission, which was looking into what they construed to be anti-American activities within American culture and particularly within the Federal Theatre Project. There were a lot of . . there was a lot of left wing . . . 

Peter Schmitz
And to their mind, white and black people on stage together was Un-American by definition. That was an Un-American thing as far as they were concerned. 

Jonathan Shandell
There were some socialist-communist sympathizers who were sort of working and doing, you know, working class Living Newspaper plays in the Federal Theatre Project. 

Peter Schmitz
Yeah, they've heard about The Cradle Will Rock! Yeah. 

Jonathan Shandell
And so Congress was very skeptical and was asking a lot of questions of, like, “Why are my tax dollars funding these pinko labor plays?” And Hallie Flanagan was dragged in front of the committee and forced to answer questions. And a lot of writers and directors were as well . .  and ultimately it was about this time that Congress decided they had enough, and they pulled the plug and defunded the Federal Theatre Project. And so the money just vanished almost overnight. And Prelude to Swing was very popular and was still running. And they actually tried to keep the production running . . . the actors, I guess, the dancers and the musicians as well, I suppose, agreed to continue to perform without pay, hoping to generate some enthusiasm and to demonstrate to politicians in Washington DC that people needed this - and there was really a market for it and they should continue going. But I think there were only one or two more performances after that and then and then the whole thing was sort of shut down and so.  . . 

Peter Schmitz
And everything was thrown into a big room and all the records were thrown into big boxes. And then it just sat in a warehouse for decades. And meanwhile American theater historians have been slowly diving into it and everyone feels “ooh and ah.” But reading the newspaper articles at the time, like, you can just be like, “oh, yeah, well, that's over.” There wasn't. It wasn't a big sense of like loss or like, this isn't outrageous. Yeah. Well, that ended. I mean, the WPA itself, the overall thing was the bridges and the dams and things. Those are still being built. They just weren't funding theater any more.

So you conclude your paper with. I'm gonna quote your paper at length. This is essentially your concluding paragraph. “Flanagan and Haggerty's dreams of incubating a locally grounded, sustainable, ambitious and creative African American theater in Philadelphia never took root in a serious way and seems to have evaporated with the cessation of the FTP. My research into the city's Black theater history has not yet located any lasting activities in the city in the years that followed the Great Depression and the New Deal. With its lofty ambitions and some noteworthy, if compromised, progress over what preceded it, Philadelphia's Negro Unit seems to have served as a temporary foothold for the city's African American artists, rather than a solid and enduring foundation for future growth.” 

Now that's a pretty depressing summation. So, we noted that in other cities, especially New York, there were theater artists who would work with the the Negro Units and the and the FTP and were able to use that as a foundation for future career. Why was Philadelphia different in that regard, do you think? 

Jonathan Shandell
I don't really know. I have to say, and I suspect that perhaps part of the explanation has to do with what was emerging at that time and then would continue to emerge in the 40s and 50s of Philadelphia's status as a kind of a Tryout City for professional productions in New York. And so, the theater economy was moving maybe in a more transactional direction, right, rather than in a direction of local institutions that had some staying power and some roots in the community being . . 

Peter Schmitz
Of which I mean the Hedgerow was apparently the only one that would continue on was doing . . 

Jonathan Shandell
. . . and was the exception that proves the rule in a way, because they were in this abandoned mill that, that and and on this like piece of property that they owned and it was this resident company where everyone had to, like, cook in the kitchen and do publicity and doing . . 

Peter Schmitz
In the suburbs. 

Jonathan Shandell
 . . and sweep the theater at night. And so it was this collective where you just went and lived, and it was sort of your whole life. And nobody really got paid prevailing professional wages for, for being there. Right. So . . 

Peter Schmitz
But the people who had been in the in the chorus of Prelude to Swing, the people who have been musicians, they must have gone back to the the the churches, to the the night clubs, to the other place where they been working before and like, “well, that was a good gig for a while, but it's over.” What do you suspect? Jerrell was why there was almost no long term effect of this. 

Jerrell Henderson
The reality, I suspect that that's part of the reality that I suspect exists cannot be proven because of the nature of how research has been compiled over the course of history. There is no doubt in my mind that the African American artists who were able to benefit - even so briefly - from the WPA Projects in Philadelphia continue to create. New York gets more attention. And so what would become American need growth theater gets more visibility. American regrowth theater is also the beginning of Sidney Poitier. Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis. So that gets attention. However, the names of those who are in Philadelphia are a lot less scrutinized. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the answer to that question, it has never been valued enough to be studied. 

So, I would look into church records. I would look into Community Center records like that's where I would go. The question is, like, how are you going to deal with it? Because if you do, you can take everything away. But the beauty of that is that it actually gives us a chance to uncover the America that has always been hidden away from us. You can do everything you can to stop this history, but it's gonna come out. It's just gonna take longer. Anyway, that's my soap box . .. 

Peter Schmitz
Well, thank you. That was great. I will say that I, just - in the way that I can noodle around in what's available, and often I'm looking at the odd corners of the Internet. I searched for “Casco Alston.” Now this will make, you know, ring a bell for Jonathan. It's Casco Alston. Was the guy who played the character of Jericho in the play. I'd noticed that he was in a cast at the Hedgerow Theatre. He'd worked with Jasper Deeter before. And then I found out after he was in Jericho, he went to the University of Pennsylvania. He got his degree from UPenn, and then he went on to medical school. He became a distinguished doctor in his field, which is really interesting to me, that the Negro Theater Unit was a stepping stone for him. Perhaps he was already a middle class young man, who had some access to things, but I'm not sure. But he obviously had, you know, a great deal of ambition and drive and he didn't just he didn't just go crawl back into a hole after the Federal Theater Unit was shut down.

Jonathan Shandell
And I can also kind of add to that a little bit and to say that I think what I could gather in my reading about the history of race relations in the city in this era, there's also some cross currents going on. One is that there is the presence of a kind of a progressive religious community that is working toward integration and in improving race relations. Particularly at this time, when you are in the midst of the Great Migration. So, a lot of migrants from the South who are sort of coming and the Black population locally is increasing rapidly and there are some people who are working to try and kind of figure out what that means and to try and pursue some sense of integration and helping everybody live together. And then you of course also have a very strong backlash and that just to, to quote the title of a book about civil rights and sort of race relations in this era in Philadelphia, the title of the book is called Up South. And so this historian sort of makes the argument that what is very strong in Philadelphia at this time is a southern way of thinking about race that is coming up against a more progressive strain of civil rights activism, and that even though we think about Pennsylvania and Philadelphia as being part of the North

Peter Schmitz
. . . Jerrell is shaking his head on my screen right now . .  and that it's perhaps more reminiscent of Southern history than Northern history in certain ways. And so that clearly was influencing the culture of the time as well. 

Peter Schmitz
Now you're nodding your head, Jerrell, in agreement with what Jonathan just said. But what would you add to that as we come to the end of our interview here? 

Jerrell Henderson
Yeah. Nah, I mean  I think that Jonathan said It really well. America has always been America, and what makes pockets like Philadelphia significant is that there is more of a progressive wave, you could argue, at least. But you're still in the United States of America. The nature of American capitalism is built on inequality. And so every time you get artists or progressives who want to push against that, (and create the actuality that America could be) challenges that myth that is unbearable to the core of who they are. Boom. So a lot of history gets lost and a lot of history gets destroyed. We build. And we tear down. 

Peter Schmitz
As we end this conversation and thank you both of you gentlemen for joining me in, it is the constant mission of this particular podcast and the work I'm doing is to make Philadelphia part of a larger conversation - whether for good or for ill - you know, there are things to be learned from what was going on in this city, and I wanted it to be part of the conversation in a way it just hasn't in the past. 

So, I'm very grateful to both of you for helping me explore that here today. So once again, I want to thank you Jonathan Shandell, Jerrell Henderson talking today about the Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre project and Jonathan's article about it. And Jerrell's experience and insight into what we can think now about what happened back then and why it matters now. I think we can appreciate that we did get from there to here - and that what happened before has brought us to this moment, and gives us an idea of where we're going to go from here and how we're going to do it. 

Anyway, thank . .  Thank both of you for joining me here today on another Adventure in Theater History: Philadelphia.