The Playbook

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A brilliant and daring account of a culture war over the place of theater in American democracy in the 1930s, one that anticipates our current divide, by the acclaimed Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro

From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. 

The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s anti-fascist novel It Can’t Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre’s incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.”

A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.“Renowned Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro turns his gift for charged narratives to the art and politics of 1930s America. The New Deal offered a stirring vision of economic justice, racial equality, and artistic experiment. A nationwide theater of range and daring was launched, only to be destroyed by the newly formed, ruthlessly conservative House Committee on Un-American Activities. Tragedy and farce abound, foreshadowing our current crises. Each chapter is like a play: together they form a devastating cycle in our continuing culture wars.” —Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Constructing a Nervous System
 
“One in four Americans saw a Federal Theater production and it threatened right-wing America. Shapiro’s beautiful, timely, shuddering narrative demonstrates the origins of our modern culture wars, and the simple truth that the arts are vital to the life of a democracy. Visionary, brilliant scripts, especially about race and racism, brought back to life by a great Shakespeare scholar, and now also political historian, were both the stunning achievement and tragic undoing of one of the New Deal’s most sublime creations.” —David W. Blight, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Frederick Douglass
 
“On finishing The Playbook, one thing was clearer to me than it ever has been: Our American culture wars are not only not new, they’re almost entirely unaltered from the era whose history this book evokes so brilliantly. The saga of the Federal Theater Project’s creation during the depression, the program’s travails and triumphs, and its ultimate demise in the birth of the HUAC Committee is an epic tale, populated by heroes and villains, artistic and political. (Shapiro’s vivid account of young Orson Welles’ epoch-making success with Macbeth at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater is, alone, worth the price of entry.) An absorbing, necessary book—with lessons for us all, artist and citizen alike.” —Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Homeland Elegies
 
“Some books illuminate the past, some feel vividly relevant to the present moment. The Playbook is one of those rare historical works that does both of these things equally brilliantly. In his compulsively readable style, James Shapiro tells a startling story of New Deal America and the Federal Theater’s extraordinary attempt to place creativity at the heart of democracy. He also uncovers the hidden roots of today’s culture wars, with all the cynicism, media manipulation and disinformation that shape our current political reality. This is not just a great work of theater history, it is history itself as a gripping and fiercely urgent drama.” —Fintan O’Toole, author of We Don’t Know OurselvesJames Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has written several award-winning books, including Shakespeare in a Divided America, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the New York Review of Books, among other places. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, and The New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently serves as a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York City.US

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