American-Made: The Enduring Legacy Of The WPA : When FDR Put The Nation To Work - Plot & Excerpts
THE CURTAIN RISESEthiopia was to have been the New York project’s first original production. The Negro Theatre filled the void with Walk Together Chillun! by Frank Wilson, a well-known black actor. Houseman didn’t like the play, but it was politically inoffensive; it opened to lukewarm reviews on February 5, 1936, and ran a month before modest audiences. Another New York unit mounted a poor production of The Comedy of Errors—so inept that Flanagan thought Shakespeare’s title could be applied across the board to all of the early New York productions. The worst of these laughable embarrassments, in her view, was Jefferson Davis, a biographical play forced on her by the Daughters of the Confederacy, who were sponsoring its southern tour.But March saw quick improvement. That month, eight productions opened at the various New York project theaters and in community spot bookings, and they brought both crowds and reviews that ranged from decent to enthusiastic. Everyman, a noted fifteenth-century morality play, started traveling to schools and churches.
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