2. Staging the New Deal

Writer Marybeth Hamilton uncovers the power, passion and craziness of the first and only successful attempt to bring government funded theatre to the whole nation.

In the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt's flagship New Deal programme, the W.P.A., took thousands of unemployed artists, writers and performers and put them on the payroll.

The Federal Theater Project, under the leadership of Hallie Flanagan, staged the American experience across the nation to some 30 million people.

From Federal work camps to parks, remote towns to great cities - now audiences could see anything from vaudeville to Shakespeare, marionettes to Eugene O'Neill for just 25 cents.

Unemployed journalists and writers were put to work on Living Newspapers, fusing documentary and drama to stage contemporary issues and create debate among the audience.

Orson Welles and John Houseman brilliantly staged an all black version of Macbeth and Marc Blitzstein's agit-opera The Cradle Will Rock.

But the Federal Theater had created powerful enemies in Congress with mounting inquiries into communist subversion and waste that would bring nearly all the New Deal's cultural programmes to an abrupt halt.

Marybeth Hamilton speaks to Tim Robbins, Simon Callow and the 103 year old veteran of the Federal stage, Norman Lloyd.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2017.