CALIIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
"OR SAY, CAN YOU SING, DANCE, OR ACT?"
VAUDEVILLE IN THE LOS ANGELES FEDERAL THEATRE
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Theatre
by
Theresa Brenner-Farrell
May 1986
~n
The thesis of Theresa Brenner-Farrell 1s approved:
Owen W. Smith, M.A.
William E. Schlosser, D.Ed., Chair
California State University, Northridge
ii
For all of the research librarians in Virginia and California who
gave me so much help; a committee chairman who kept me focused; and a
family that gave me unending support, I dedicate this work.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Library of Congress Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason
University
Ruth Kerns, Librarian/Archivist at George Mason University
Photography Department of the Central Library of the Los Angeles
Public Library
Gloria Barajas, Los Angeles Public Library
Helene Mochedlover, Principal Librarian Literature Department Los
Angeles Public Library
John Snyder, Micrographics and Records, Los Angeles Times
Dale Wasserman, Playwright
Gaylord Larson, Media Specialist, Ventura College
Christopher Brenner (actor/singer)
Chris Gerlach (narrator)
Scott Groeneveld (actor/singer)
Judy Ann Minor (singer)
Lynne Thurston (actress)
Pat Osborne (accompanist)
iv
PREFACE
This thesis 1s about a particular time 1n the history of
vaudeville, a time when its growth and glitter had passed, its theatres
had closed, and the people of vaudeville who had spent their lives
traveling the booking office circuits were left with no where to go.
The end of vaudeville coincided with the greatest economic depression
in American history which left thirteen million people, out of a
population of 130 million, unemployed.
For the first time the United
States government found it necessary to become the nation's employer,
and it began the task of creating jobs for the unemployed, and that
included those of the theatre.
This was the closest that the country
ever came to having a nationally subsidized theatre. It was best summed
up in the words of one of the Federal Theatre songs: "Uncle Sam wants
to hire/ Actors with dramatic fire/ Oh, say, can you sing, dance, or
act?"
After reading Hallie Flanagan's Arena, the History of the Federal
Theatre I became fascinated by the fact that Los Angeles produced more
plays than New York, and the plays that received so much acclaim were
the work of the vaudeville unit.
However, there was very little
information available on these productions.
This was the beginning of
my research which led me to create a new form of study which though it
meets the requirements of a written thesis, is presented on a video
v
cassette us1ng the pictures, dialogue, and mus1c from the vaudeville
productions of the Los Angeles Project.
It is my hope that this will
create a more tangible 1mage, rich in texture and feeling, for the work
that was done in Los Angeles.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
v
Abstract
Vlll
Chapter
1.
Introduction
1
2.
Statement of Problem
5
3.
Methodology
6
4.
Summary and Conclusions
8
5.
Video Script
11
Notes
54
Bibliography
60
Appendix
68
V1l
ABSTRACT
"OH SAY, CAN YOU SING, DANCE, OR ACT?"
VAUDEVILLE IN THE LOS ANGELES FEDERAL THEATRE
by
Theresa Brenner-Farrell
Master of Arts in Theatre
This thesis is an examination of four productions of the Los
Angeles Federal Theatre which were written to revive vaudeville as a
form of popular entertainment.
The productions include: Follow the
Parade (1936), Revue of Reviews (1937), Ready! Aim! Fire! (1938), and
Two-A-Day, A Cavalcade of Vaudeville (1938).
on the study of scripts, production books,
The research has focused
mus~c,
and photographs that
have only recently become available through the Library of Congress
Federal Theatre Collection at George Mason University.
The productions
were examined to determine how the Federal Theatre experimented with
genre, production techniques, and the casting of former vaudevillians
in its attempt to revive vaudeville. The research generated such a rich
array of visual and audio material that this thesis is presented on
video tape.
This thesis maintains that even though the Los Angeles Federal
Theatre vaudeville productions were popular, they did not succeed in
viii
creating any lasting revival of vaudeville.
The Federal Theatre was a
government agency and thus operated within a maze of government
restrictions which inhibited any such revival.
In addition the
productions themselves were not a new form of vaudeville but rather
forms of musical theatre, and therefore cannot be viewed as a new style
of vaudeville that would have captivated the public's attention.
Vaudeville had been a form of popular entertainment for forty years,
but changes 1n technology and public taste brought about its demise.
The Federal Theatre failed to realize that popular entertainment cannot
be consciously created.
It grows out of the values, needs, and demands
of both the middle and working classes.
Thus any attempted revival of
vaudeville as a popular entertainment was destined to fail.
ix
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
By the early 1920's the golden era of vaudeville was over.
The
advent of film, radio and musical theatre as well as a changing
American society had brought an end to what had been the most popular
form of entertainment in the country.
of the
1
Long before the Great Depression
1930's, vaudeville performers found themselves out of work.
Hoping to find employment in the movies many of them headed west to
Hollywood, but Los Angeles did not prove to be a city of theatrical
angels.
Though the city could boast a long history of theatre and
popular entertainments, it never achieved the status of San Francisco,
and this was especially true for vaudeville.
During the 1920's professional theatre was limited to road shows
of Broadway hits such as No, No, Nanette, and Little Nellie Kelly.
Reinhardt brought his spectacle to the Shrine Auditorium.
Max
Angelinos
continued to attend other religious plays such as the long running
Mission Play which had opened in San Gabrial in 1912 and told the early
history of the California Missions.
2
The only vaudeville that was being
produced was in the form of small unit shows which were created by the
film studios which owned the theatres where the movies and the unit
shops were presented.
These one hour shows featured music and dance,
and were staged between the motion pictures.
To save money the studios
2
seldom hired acts that had ever played the big-time vaudeville
.
.
Cl.rCUl.tS.
3
When the stock market crash in 1929 ushered 1.n the Depression, Los
Angeles, like the rest of the nation experienced an unprecedented r1.se
in unemployment.
As factories closed and farms were sold a great
migration of people occured when as many as two million people embarked
on an aimless journey in search of work.
Between 1930 and 1935 five
thousand people a month moved to California. 4
In 1934 the federal
government created the Works Progress Administration to find work for
the thirteen million people who were unemployed. Unlike previous relief
programs that tried to all ieviate the misery of the poor, the W. p .A
sought to create jobs that would utilize a person's training and
skills.
5
A unique part of this New Deal experiment was the Federal Arts
Project which employed writers, musicians, fine artists, and theatre
people.
Under the direction of Hallie Flanagan the Federal Theatre was
established to put theatre people back to work entertaining the
American public.
6
Gilmor Brown was regional director for the Los Angeles branch of
the Federal Theatre which produced 398 shows from 1935 to 1939.
Audiences were entertained in theatres, schools, parks, and even Civil
Conservation Corps camps.
They saw everything from puppets and foreign
language drama in Yiddish and French to modern dance, and children's
theatre productions.
The government became a patron of the arts and
producing classical drama, circuses, and vaudeville. However Flanagan's
main focus was on the theatre, and she urged the projects to actively
experiment with new styles of production.
She Wrote:
3
The Theatre which should be the most dynamically concerned
with human life has remained, of all the arts, perhaps the
least aware of the changing world • • • Great social forces
interpenetrated our theatre, and our theatre to be worth its
.
.1 an d econom1c
. scene. 7
sa 1 t must interpenetrate
t h e soc1a
Flanagan maintained that the Federal Theatre had to present productions
which were not only innovative but also different from anything else
that had been done on the commercial stage:
All of these (commercial) plays made familar by the measure
of success • • • did nothing, between the years of 1927 and
1937 to avert the catastrophe engulfing the theatre. All such
plays placed end to end could make a bridge on which one
single one of the eight thousand theatre people for whom we
are responsible can walk over to private industry.
8
No where was this more true than in the vaudeville units. Flanagan
described vaudeville as a "dreary succession of outworn acts" that were
9
. desperate nee d o f rev1ta
.
1.1zat1on.
.
1n
Under the direction of Eda Edson
the Los Angeles vaudeville unit sought to give Flanagan what she
wanted:
a strong new form of variety entertainment. In a Los Angeles
Times interview Edson said:
Vaudeville should come back, but under a new name, and in a
different form •
people love vaudeville • • • but they
are tired of the cut and dry acts.
10
4
The productions of the vaudeville unit were different from the
traditional vaudeville shows, and they were among the attended
performances in the Los Angeles project.
CHAPTER TWO
Definition of the Problem
This thesis will examine the work of the Los Angeles vaudeville
unit and its attempt to revive vaudeville.
5
CHAPTER THREE
Methodology
When the Federal Theatre closed in 1939 all of the Projects across
the country sent their scripts, production books, posters, photographs,
and designs to Washington, D.C.
Once everything arrived, it was put
away - and lost for nearly forty years.
Federal Theatre were found
~n
In 1974 the records of the
an airplane hanger.
George Mason
University, in Fairfax, Virginia became the repository for the
collection.
Prior to the discovery of the papers most of the research
had centered on the work of the New York City Project. What was written
about Los Angeles was limited to discussions of the structure and
organization of the Project and a brief description of its many
.
pro d uct~ons.
11
Through the assistance of George Mason University's
Special Collections and Archives at Fenwick Library I have been able to
exam~ne
photocopies of the scripts, production books, and photo
collections of the vaudeville unit. In addition to these sources I have
also read the publications of the Federal Theatre including the
speeches and letters of Hallie Flanagan to the Los Angeles Project.
I
have also given careful review to various books, articles, and theses
concern~ng
the Federal Theatre.
As it was the expressed aim of both Flanagan and Edson that a new
form of vaudeville be created, I have studied the scripts of the
6
7
vaudeville unit to determine what new forms this experimentation took.
These scripts include the following productions:
Follow the Parade
(1936), Revue of Reviews (1937), Ready! Aim! Fire! (1937), and
Two-A-Day, A Cavalcade of Vaudeville (1938). In examining the scripts I
considered the following questions: 1) How did these new forms compare
with the original vaudeville and musical theatre?; 2) How were the old
vaudeville acts changed to suit the style of the new productions?;
3) How did the structure of the Federal Theatre impact on the possible
revival of vaudeville?; and 4) How did these new shows reflect the
"Myth of Success" as it has been forwarded by Albert F. McClean, Jr. 1n
American Vaudeville as Ritua1.
11
In an effort to better orient other researchers to the conditions
which led to the establishment of the Federal Theatre this thesis will
present a brief overview of both the theatre and social history of Los
Angeles during the late 1920's and early 1930's.
Using var1ous
resources such as theatre reviews, articles from Los Angeles
periodicals and newspapers, histories of vaudeville and Los Angeles, I
hope to present on video casette a picture that encompasses not only
the spirit of the times but also the manner in which the social and
theatrical conditions were interrelated and eventually became
manifested in the work of the Federal Theatre.
'1 .
CHAPTER FOUR
Summary and Conclusions
As popular and successful as the productions of the vaudeville
unit were, they did not herald
form of variety entertainment.
~n
a revival nor did they create a new
The content of these plays was
innovative, but their style was drawn from musical comedy and revue. If
anything was new, it was the experience that the vaudevillians
themselves had working for a government agency.
The Federal Theatre failed to utilize the positive aspects of
vaudeville, the aspects that had made it successful for forty years.
Government regulations made touring all but impossible, and because the
shows did not travel the performers were not seen in the smaller cities
of California and the West.
There was no way in which an audience
following for either vaudeville as whole or particular performers could
be created or maintained.
The musical theatre format discarded the
vaudeville act as something old and worn out.
The performers were not
given the opportunity or the guidance to create new acts that were more
in keeping with public demand.
Instead vaudevillians found themselves
cast into plays that attempted to use their training and skills, but
not their acts. However, writing shows that could use acrobats, trained
animals, song and dance teams, and others was not an easy task. Perhaps
that is why the final production of the unit, Two-A-Day, was a
8
9
nostalgic revue of the old acts themselves.
There were no new acts 1n
the revue in part because the Federal Theatre
wa~
not structured to
permit the training of the young and unexperienced.
Probably the greatest flaw was the failure of the Federal Theatre
to understand that popular entertainment cannot be consciously created.
It grows out of the values and needs of the people. Vaudeville had once
represented a world of glamour, glitter, and material success for its
audiences.
All of the ethnic comics, pretty girls, handsome crooners,
and others told the audience that anyone could make it in America. This
was the Myth of Success.
12
However, the closing of the vaudeville
theatres and the Great Depression ended all of that.
The performers
must have looked like faded Christmas cards, for they lost their
ability to carry the symbol of material success for the public - a
public that was questioning the validity of such a myth when there were
so many unemployed people in the country.
Even if government support
had continued, it is very unlikely that the Federal Theatre could have
revived vaudeville.
This thesis is but one part of the research that is yet to be done
on the work of the Los Angeles Federal Theatre.
The work was so
prolific and broad in its scope of achievements that there is still
much to be written.
The work could easily focus on Yasha Frank and the
children's unit; Myra Kinch and the dance unit; the technical staff
which included people such as Dale Wasserman, George Izenour, Charles
Elson, Fredrick Stover, and Nelson Baume.
The religious unit under the
direction of actor and later Anglican priest, Gareth Hughes, produced a
provocative ser1es of mystery plays in churches throughout the city.
The work of the Negro unit was also very well recieved, and their
10
production of Run Little Chillun was the most successful of all of the
plays presented in Los Angeles.
The city was treated to a rich
theatrical experience from 1935 to 1939.
It was a time of
experimentation when the people of the theatre were given government
support to risk putting people back to work on the stage in ways that
had never before been seen. Their efforts have become an important part
of the theatrical heritage of Los Angeles.
CHAPTER FIVE
SCRIPT
VIDEO
Sl JUDGE
AUDIO
NARRATOR:
In the decade following the
First World War Los Angeles was everything
that has come to represent the Roaring
Twenties.
It was a city for people on the
move; people who could hustle a dollar
into a fortune by speculating in the right
S2 SIGNAL HILL
land deals - oil wells - or movies. Anyone
who was 1n search of a new life came to
S3 THE SHEIK
Los Angeles.
13
This was especially true
for vaudeville performers.
S4 HOLLYWOODLAND
Though Los Angeles had never been as
strong a center for vaudeville as San
Francisco had been, it was the place to
come to find a job in the film industry.
The 1920's were a time of transition for
popular entertainment in America.
SS VAUDEVILLE THEATRE
Vaudeville had been the first modern form
of popular entertainment beginning in the
late 1800's when it grew into its classic
S6 VAUDEVILLE BILL
format of two shows a day with eight to
ten acts carefully arranged on the bill.
The acts were designed to appeal not only
11
12
VIDEO
AUDIO
to men but also to women and children, and
because it became family entertainment
vaudeville was a great success. Vaudeville
performers reflected and helped maintain
attitudes about ethnic groups, women,
marriage, and above all else the belief 1n
the American dream that anyone with
ambition, work, and luck could become
87 MILTON BERLE
wealthy.
Most vaudeville performers had
come from working class families, but
their audiences saw them living in an
exciting world of fame and riches; they
were the incarnation of the Myth of
Success.
88 PALACE THEATRE
14
Vaudeville reached its peak from
1900 to 1915 when there were 10,000
vaudeville theatres across the country. 15
By 1920 top vaudeville performers earned
the highest salaries in the entire
entertainment industry, but the changes
brought on by the recess1on after the
89 PREMIER
First World War, the growing popularity of
film and radio, as well as the inability
810 ALBEE
of men like Edward Albee who owned the
booking offices which controlled
13
AUDIO
VIDEO
vaudeville to adapt to the times were to
bring the final curtain down for 20,000
vaudevillians.
16
Vaudeville management did
not encourage audiences to come to their
local theatres to see the stars of the new
media. Albee even went so far as to refuse
employment to performers who appeared 1n
Sll FANNY BRICE
. or n1ght
.
ra d 10
c 1 ub s. 17
Actions such as
these drove many of the top rated artists
out of vaudeville, and many of the
audiences left with them.
In 1926 there
were only twelve big time vaudeville
theatres in the country; in 1929 there
were five; by 1932 there were none.
Because of their broad style of acting and
the special nature of their acts, many of
the vaudevillians could not make the
transition into theatre or motion
pictures.
During the 1920's Los Angeles may
not have been an important city for
vaudeville, but it did have an active
Sl2 PILGRIMAGE PLAY
theatre community.
There were the long
running seasonal productions of the
Sl3 MISSION PLAY
Pilgrimage Play and The Mission Play which
@ '
14
VIDEO
AUDIO
told the story of the early California
m1ss1ons.
The little theatre movement was
quite active, and there were groups like
S14 PLAYHOUSE
the Hollywood Community Theatre and the
SIS NO, NO, NANETTE
Pasadena Playhouse.
Broadway sent its
biggest hits to Los Angeles, and Max
Reinhardt brought his spectacle, The
S16 THE MIRACLE
Miracle, to the Shrine Auditorium.
Legitimate theatre was doing so well that
S17 EL CAPITAN
a new theatre, the El Capitan, opened in
1925.
Vaudeville though was relegated to
the position of the poor cousin and was
limited to small unit shows that the film
studios put together to appear with their
.
. t h eatres. 18
p1ctures
1n t h e1r
S18 VARIETY
On October 22, 1929 ground was
broken for the new Los Angeles stock
exchange.
One week later Wall Street was
in a panic as sixteen million shares were
Sl9 VANITY FAIR
traded in a single day.
When the tape was
swept away the roaring ever upward
movement of the 1920's was over, and the
Great Depression began.
Hoover declared:
In 1930 President
15
AUDIO
VIDEO
S20 HOOVER
HOOVER:
All evidences indicate that the
worst effects of the crash upon
unemployment will be passed during the
next sixty days.
S21 UNEMPLOYED
NARRATOR:
19
The evidences were all wrong.
Within a year thirteen million people were
S22 SOUPLINES
without work.
Souplines were forming
everywhere, even in Los Angeles.
S23 DUST BOWL
20
To add
insult to injury drought and pestilence
spread across the nation's farmlands.
Farms were being sold, factories were
S24 PEOPLE MOVING
closing; and people were embarking on an
aimless journey in search of work.
21
It
appeared as if the American dream had
failed.
Between 1930 and 1935 five
thousand people a month moved to
.
22
Ca 1 1. f orn1a.
In 1932 27,000 unemployed
actors registered with Hollywood casting
agents.
S25 ROOSEVELT
23
The election of President Roosevelt
offered new hope to the country.
He was
intent on putting the nation back to work,
and in three years he created a series of
agencies and programs to help the
16
VIDEO
AUDIO
unemployed including the Works Progress
Administration which was under the
S26 HARRY HOPKINS
direction of Harry Hopkins.
In 1934
Congress established the Federal Arts
827 ARTISTS
Project to employ artists, writers,
musicians, and theatre people.
Suddenly
S28 WRITERS
the government was hiring people to paint
829 ANDROCLES
murals, give concerts, and produce plays.
The Project came under the ausp1ces of the
W.P.A., and Harry Hopkins appointed his
long time friend and director of the
830 FLANAGAN
Vassar Experimental Theatre, Hallie
Flanagan, to be the national director of
the Federal Theatre. A nation-wide program
was established with the primary goal
being to put theatre people back to work
24
. .
.
enterta1n1ng
t h e Amer1can
peop 1 e.
Flanagan was a tireless worker and a real
champion for the people who came to work
for the Federal Theatre.
Her staff in Los
Angeles wrote a prayer for her:
WORKERS:
Our mother who art in Washington
Hallie would be thy name
The election come,
17
VIDEO
AUDIO
The plays be done,
In New York as it is 1n
Los Angeles
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our turkeys,
As we forgive Warner Brothers.
Lead us not into Communism,
But deliver us from Republicans
For thine is the Animal Kingdom
(by Phillip Barry)
And the Prologue to Glory
(by E. P. Conkle). 25
831 GILMOR BROWN
NARRATOR:
The country was divided into
regions, and the director of the Southern
California region was Gilmor Brown,
artistic director of the Pasadena
Playhouse. The Los Angeles Federal Theatre
was second only 1n size to New York, but
it mounted more productions than New
York.
832 FLANAGAN
26
FLANAGAN:
Flanagan later wrote:
Los Angeles picketed less and
laughed more.
While in New York we were
always moving heaven and earth to get
18
VIDEO
AUDIO
shows open, in the West we urged
.
27
restra1nt.
NARRATOR:
The Project was organized into
smaller units that included drama,
S33 PINOCCHIO
experimental theatre, children's theatre,
S34 NATIVITY PLAY
foreign drama, religious drama, classical
theatre, Negro theatre, dance, and
S35 DANCE
vaudeville.
The individual units received
S36 TECHNICAL UNIT
extensive support from the technical staff
unit of costume, set and lighting
designers and technicians as well as the
Research Bureau which compiled incredibly
complete production books for each show in
addition to maintaining a staff of writers
who also researched projects and developed
plays.
S37 SCHEDULE
28
The Federal Theatre in Los
Angeles had an average of eighteen shows
per week in production, so these units
were always working.
The first auditions for the Federal
Theatre were in September of 1935.
People
were hired through a process of
interviews, auditions, and portfolio
review.
29
Later on an interviewing panel
19
VIDEO
AUDIO
made up of members of the administrative
staff and the professional community such
S38 KARLOFF
as Boris Karloff and Edward Arnold was
S39 ARNOLD
added.
Depending on skills and experience
salaries ranged from fifty-five to
ninety-five dollars a month.
S40 CARTOON
During its
first year the government paid all of the
expenses, but as time went by the local
project paid for its own publicity,
royalties, and theatre rentals out of
ticket receipts, an impressive
accomplishment since the top ticket pr1ce
was one dollar and ten cents.
Between 1935 and 1939 three million
people in Los Angeles saw nearly four
hundred different productions; the Townely
S41 TRIPLE A
Cycles, The Weavers, Triple A Plowed
Under, Hansel and Gretle, the highly
acclaimed black production, Run, Little
Chillun, and many others. 30
In 1936 Los
Angeles participated 1n the world premier
S42 IT CAN'T
of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here
which was simultaneously staged by the
Federal Theatre in twenty-seven other
cities. Some great talents were brought to
~1
20
VIDEO
AUDIO
the American theatre by the Los Angeles
Project including:
technical designers
Fredrick Stover and George Izenour;
S43 IZENOUR
playwright Dale Wasserman; and dancers
S44 WASSERMAN
. h an d Be 11 a Lew1tz
. ky. 31
Myra K1nc
S45 KINCH
peak there were fourteen hundred people
S46 LEWITZKY
employed on the Project.
At its
One of the units
which brought much acclaim and attention
S47 EDSON
to Los Angeles was vaudeville. 32
EDSON:
Vaudeville should come back, but
under a new name and in a different
form. • • 33
NARRATOR:
So said Eda Edson, director of
the Los Angeles vaudeville unit.
It was a
production of the vaudeville unit that
opened the Federal Theatre in Southern
California on New Year's Eve in 1935.
Gaities of 1936 was the first of the
productions which according to Flanagan
gave the Los Angeles Project its style,
color, and fame.
34
Edson's zeal for
creating a new form of vaudeville
•
Q
21
VIDEO
AUDIO
reflected Flanagan's appeal to bring new
life to variety entertainment.
S48 FLANAGAN
FLANAGAN:
• • • we know too often
vaudeville 1s a dreary succession of
outworn acts.
I think it is our job to
cope with the problems of vaudeville
technique.
I should like to see, for
example, a series of acts as distinctly
American as the cartoon in the New Yorker
or the daily press • • •
S49 FOLLOW
NARRATOR:
35
Edson and playwrights Gene
Stone and Jack Robinson went to work to
breathe new life into variety
entertainment.
Aware of the appeal that
films had and the increased level of
audience expectation for sophisticated
effects that they had created, the
playwrights attempted to give the
production what Edson referred to as that
II
same smoothness and imagination" as
.
.
h a d • 36
mot1on
p1ctures
Follow the Parade
in 1936 was not only conceived of by
Edson, but she also directed and staged
•
22
VIDEO
850 PIANO SET
AUDIO
it, and on opening night she conducted the
orchestra.
Her idea was to take a series
of vaudeville acts and weave them into a
cohesive play.
The hero of the play was a
young playwright-director, Jimmy Ross, who
singlehandedly saved vaudeville and all of
the unemployed vaudevillians who live at
his mother's boarding house, by writing a
new show that proved vaudeville could be
as timely as that other new invention, the
television.
Though their intent was to
revitalize vaudeville by creating a new
form, Stone and Robinson's script reads
like many Our Gang Comedy or Andy Hardy
movies where someone saves the day by
suggesting, "Hey, let's put on a show!" In
a speech that sounds like something
Flanagan would have written to former
vaudevillians, Jimmy convinced the old
performers that his ideas would work:
S51 BOARDING HOUSE
JIMMY:
me.
• • • I know what you think about
You think I'm just a young upstart
trying to tell you old timers how to put
show business back on its feet. A dreamer.
23
VIDEO
AUDIO
That's where you're wrong.
dreamer - you are.
I'm not a
You're still living in
the past - waiting for the good old days
to come back
Remember the world
around us is changing - going forward all
the time.
And we've got to follow the
parade. 37
852 FOLLOW
NARRATOR:
Follow the Parade relied
heavily on multi-media devices such as
projections, recorded music,
announcements, film and even television.
When the curtain rose on Jimmy's show, the
audience saw a simple set with two
platforms and ramps center stage. On stage
left there was a large television set
where the image of a master of ceremonies
was projected to introduce each scene. The
cast consisted of nearly one hundred
performers which meant the staging had to
have fast and fluid transitions that
depended on quick lighting changes and the
853 FOLLOW
easy smooth-flowing movement of people.
The changes that the writers were
experimenting with were explained to the
24
VIDEO
AUDIO
audience through Jimmy as he sold his idea
to a theatrical producer:
JIMMY:
You've got to give the audience
something new, and you've got to do it at
prices they can afford to pay, and you can
in a show like this because it depends on
originality and ideas instead of big
854 FOLLOW
names, lavish costumes and sets.
NARRATOR:
38
Jimmy convinces the producer,
but what message has he given the
audience?
He has told everyone that
vaudeville 1s dead, the performers are
unemployed dreamers who are representative
of past glories, present miseries, and
future uncertainties.
If the public is to
return to the vaudeville theatre again, it
will only be to see something new,
something totally different than
vaudeville was before.
But will it be
vaudeville?
Jimmy's show opens with a recording
of the title song played while female
dancers march on stage carrying fake
25
VIDEO
S50 PIANO SET
AUDIO
it, and on opening night she conducted the
orchestra.
Her idea was to take a series
of vaudeville acts and weave them into a
cohesive play.
The hero of the play was a
young playwright-director, Jimmy Ross, who
singlehandedly saved vaudeville and all of
the unemployed vaudevillians who live at
his mother's boarding house, by writing a
new show that proved vaudeville could be
as timely as that other new invention, the
television.
Though their intent was to
revitalize vaudeville by creating a new
form, Stone and Robinson's script reads
like many Our Gang Comedy or Andy Hardy
movies where someone saves the day by
suggesting, "Hey, let's put on a show!" In
a speech that sounds like something
Flanagan would have written to former
vaudevillians, Jimmy convinced the old
performers that his ideas would work:
S51 BOARDING HOUSE
JIMMY:
me.
• • • I know what you think about
You think I'm just a young upstart
trying to tell you old timers how to put
show business back on its feet. A dreamer.
26
VIDEO
AUDIO
Because we get no privacy
Our lives at home would be
exquisite If people wouldn't come and
. .
v~s~t.
NARRATOR:
39
Following Hallie Flanagan's
belief that no one wanted to see dreary
old acts, the vaudeville unit tried to
make Follow the Parade as contemporary as
possible.
It satirized organized crime in
Chicago with a skit about gangsters
enjoying the good life behind bars.
Popular radio shows that supposedly
discovered amateur talent were spoofed
~n
a scene where professional "amateurs" are
angered when a real amateur wins. Even the
Depression became part of the play, for
the title song was a comment on the
economic plight of the country:
857 FOLLOW SONG
SONG;
Get in the
sw~ng,
Follow the
s~ng,
Follow the
Parade!
Wake up and
Parade!
@
27
AUDIO
Don't be afraid to get 1n the
big Parade!
You can wade through your troubles
that weighted you down,
Weighted you down - Follow the
Parade!
You'll get the beat- Follow the
Parade!
Just let your feet, Follow the
Parade!
NARRATOR:
40
The television M.G. announces
that everyday more and more people are
going back to work; factories are
reopening as " • • • all America is falling
in line to 'Follow the Parade' ." 41
A modern dance followed with the dancers
dressed as factory workers returning to
work while slides of modern industry were
projected onto the cyclorama.
The number
ended with the rest of the cast coming
through the house and onto the stage and
then off upstage, supposedly going back to
work.
•
28
VIDEO
AUDIO
Edson's choreography attempted to
S58 TOY SHOP
use as many of the "dumb" or silent acts
as possible.
There was a toy shop scene
and another about a lunatic asylum.
Black
performers were put into a production
number about the development of the Saint
Louis blues from it's African roots and
into it's possible future form.
It was a
very colorful scene which followed in the
Federal Theatre tradition of putting black
actors into jungle costumes with alot of
S59 ST. LOUIS BLUES
feathers and drums. 42
Oddly enough the
future of the blues was presented by an
all white group of dancers in
'
sophisticated costumes a la some Fred
Astaire film; there was not a brightly
colored feather, drum, or black amongst
them.
S60 BUNNIES
Follow the Parade was very well
received by the critics and the public.
After completing its ten week run it was
sent to Texas to be part of the Dallas
Exposition, however it never toured 1n
California.
Due to bureaucratic
regulations, touring was not possible 1n
29
VIDEO
AUDIO
the Federal Theatre. 43 This was one of the
biggest changes for the former
vaudevillians who were accustomed to
traveling from city to city, building an
audience following while honing their
theatrical skills.
861 OLD VAUDEVILLE
The experience of being a vaudeville
performer brought these people together
into a tighty knit group.
There have been
stories told about the animosity that
existed between the vaudevillians and the
younger members of the Federal Theatre
which was caused in some degree by a
generation gap that reinforced for the
vaudevillians a feeling of being excluded
from a world in which they had once
. d • 44
t h r1ve
Dale Wasserman commented that
there was an air of sadness that
surrounded the vaudeville performers as if
.
t1me
had passed t h em by. 45
They resented
loosing what they considered to be their
rightful place in the theatre to younger
and less experienced people who they
perceived as having no understanding for
what it meant to do a "next to closing
30
VIDEO
AUDIO
turn in the big time, stealing bows, or
giving the audience a wow finish. 11
862 JOE E. BROWN
Vaudeville acts were very carefully
created and skillfully perfected through
painstaking rehearsal, performance, and
analysis of audience response.
A
successful act often took on a life of its
own and was viewed as being a very special
possession, a hybred cross between a
parent who provided material support and a
protected child loved for its beauty and
863 DOLLY SISTERS
charm.
Though the act underwent its own
sort of evolutionary changes, it remained
part of a highly structured genre based on
a show of eight to ten acts that were held
together simply by how the theatre
managers arranged the bill.
After working
in vaudeville, the Federal Theatre with
it's experimentation in styles of
production that was closer to the
legitimate stage was indeed an untoward
step into a new form of performance for
these artists.
864 REVUE
For the next show to use the
vaudevillians, Gene Stone teamed up with
31
VIDEO
AUDIO
Jack Robinson again, and their 1937
collaboration was Revue of Reviews, a
commentary on popular magazines.
As with
other revues, the show ran as a continuous
ser1es of songs, dances, and sketches.
Like Follow the Parade Revue of Reviews
had a cast of nearly one hundred
performers.
There were twenty-one scenes
and equal number of sets.
However it
lacked the multi-media effects of Follow
the Parade and the attempt to create a
story line. This show was in the tradition
of Ziegfield's Follies and George White's
Scandals, but it also attempted to project
that New Yorkers magazine cartoon quality.
Each scene was a topical treatment of
popular magazines.
S65 OPENING
Revue of Reviews opened with eight
men dressed as college students stepping
through eight doors urging everyone to buy
subscriptions as they sang "We're Working
Our Way Through College."
SONG:
Rich man! Poor man! Beggarman!
Thief!
32
AUDIO
Doctor! Lawyer! Mercant! Chief!
We come knocking at your door
With magazines for rich and poor!
Magazines for young and old!
Magazines that must be sold!
Magazines for you to try!
Magazines for you to buy!
From door to door
Throughout the nation
How we bore the population
With our hard luck stories and our
Tales of woe we use to land our
Readers for the tripe we sell them,
How they fall for the bunk we tell
them
When it looks like we might miss
one Then we always g1ve them this one:
We're working our way through
college
Won't you take a year's
subscription
.
?46
To our magaz1nes.
33
AUDIO
VIDEO
S66 TEMPLE
NARRATOR:
Revue of Reviews satirized
beloved child stars Shirley Temple, Jane
Withers, and Freddy Bartholomew as being
spoiled brats in a scene about Photoplay
magazine.
S67 PHYSICAL
Another popular scene was based
on Brian McFadden's Physical Culture
magazine in which everyone was dressed
exerc~se
clothes.
~n
The publisher was a man
who chose his staff by their physical
abilities; when one of his employees
sneezed at a meeting he was promptly
fired.
Myra Kinch, the director of the
dance unit, was the choreographer.
Her
style of training gave the show a more
modern look than the traditional
vaudeville shows had with their usual tap
and social dance acts.
For the House
Beautiful scene Kinch designed a dance
where the dolls
S68 ASIA
dance.
~n
a Dresden shop began to
The cover of Asia magazine was
brought to life by a chorus of eleven
dancers portraying a terra cotta basrelief behind a solo Asian dancer.
The
dance unit itself was used to satirize
,, .
34
VIDEO
AUDIO
869 GRAHAM
modern dancers like Martha Graham 1n
870 MODERN DANCE
"America Takes Up Modern Dance."
Revue of Reviews was not a new form
of vaudeville; it was not even a new form
of revue.
In the production book the
director, T. M. Paul, reported:
871 PRODUCTION NUMBER
PAUL:
•• Revue of Review, being an
ordinary revue consisting of production,
dance numbers, sketches and musical
numbers did not present any particular
problems and will not, to an experienced
. 1 producer or d'1rector. 47
mus1ca
NARRATOR:
Once again the vaudeville form,
a bill of different and unrelated acts,
was discarded and replaced by the musical
theatre form.
No attempt seems to have
been made to update the acts themselves,
instead the performers were put into plays
written in the structure of musical
theatre.
Stone and Robinson took this
approach even further in their next
production, Ready! Aim! Fire!.
35
'' , I
VIDEO
872 READY!
AUDIO
Ready! Aim! Fire! was a tightly
structured musical comedy in which the
musical numbers were an integrated part of
the plot.
Like the previous Federal
Theatre attempts to revive vaudeville,
this show simply transplanted the
vaudevillians into musical theatre. Though
Ready! Aim! Fire! was more in the
tradition of Strike Up the Band and Of
Thee I Sin& than a new form of varity
entertainment, in order to use the
vaudevillians the characters in this
political satire were drawn in the
vaudeville style.
There were fast talking
comics, baggy pants comics, ethnic com1cs,
soubrettes, handsome crooners, minstrels,
and exotic dancers.
The play dealt with
the absurdity of war and poked fun at the
.
h.1ps o f Europe. 48
d 1ctators
873 OLEO
Ready! Aim! Fire! takes place in the
fictional little country of Moronia which
has maintained an ancient feud with it's
neighbor, Berserkia. Though everything has
been peaceful, the Moronian government is
under pressure from the munitions industry
36
VIDEO
AUDIO
to declare war against Berserkia.
Because
none of Moronia's citizens are interested
in going to war, two slick and fast
talking Hollywood songwriters, Bugs Magee
and Harry Hinkle, are hired to write a
song that will inspire even the most
conscientious objector to enlist.
S74 MAGEE AND HINKLE
Magee
and Hinkle are very much the Abbott and
Costello Style of comics.
The songwriters arrived
v~a
~n
Moronia
the miracle of multimedia techniques.
The audience saw a fim montage of trains,
boats, planes, battleships, and the sea of
Normandy; in it's final shot, Hinkle and
Magee were seen hitch-hiking to the
Moronian capital.
S75 HINKLE, MAGEE
AND SCHMALTZ
S76 KING LEO
Upon arrival they met
Dictator Schmaltz, his minstrel troupe of
cabinet members; King Leo, an ethnic comic
in the mold of Weber from Weber and
Fields; and a city of Pink Shirts, the
Moronian citizens.
Magee and Hinkle write a war song
S77 SPIES
only to have it stolen by two beautiful
Berserkian spies.
878 JAIL
Hinkle and Magee are
arrested and thrown in jail.
Moments
37
VIDEO
AUDIO
before they are to be executed for
treason, they write a new song, "Ready!
Aim! Fire!".
S79 RADIO MIKES
Schmaltz declares war on
Berserkia, and the new song fills the
a1rways.
SONG:
Fire at the enemy
With a boom, boom and bang, bang
Every loyal son,
Go get your gun, on the run,
We'll have no chance,
We' 11 fight for Moroni a
And the right
Let your voices all ring out
And sing the battle cry
Ready, aim, fire,
.
49
We'll fire, f1re.
NARRATOR:
Act two begins with the weekly
broadcast of the Krupenheimer Munitions'
Hour.
S80 OLEO
ANNOUNCER:
Good evening ladies and
gentlemen • . • And folks what better way
is there to go to war than the
38
VIDEO
AUDIO
Krupenheimer way • • • carry a
Krupenheimer rifle
• If a gas attack
is coming, even your best friend won't
tell you. Wear a Krupenheimer gas mask and
be the life of the party • • • 50
NARRATOR:
Various vaudeville acts were
used in this scene to sing and dance as
the Krupenheimer Kuties and act in the
Krupenheimer Art Players:
NED:
John! John! I'm afriad!
JOHN:
NED:
Steady, old man.
I can't stand it, I tell you!
I'm a
coward. 5 1
881 RECRUITMENT
NARRATOR:
To
~nsure
that enlistments
remained high Hinkle and Magee turned the
recruitment headquarters into a carnival
with barkers and a girlie show featuring
the
~ederal
Theatre version of Gypsy Rose
Lee, Gypsy Nora Lee.
If a man wanted to
see her, he had to enlist, and they all
did. The audience never saw Gypsy's dance,
but those dances that the audience did see
39
VIDEO
AUDIO
were once again choreographed by Myra
Kinch.
These included the cabinet meeting
which was staged as a minstrel show; the
execution scene which was a military tap
S82 MUNITIONS WORKERS
dance; and the dance of the Krupenheimer
munitions workers which was performed by
the dance unit and not the vaudeville
artists.
As the war progressed, messages from
Moronia's General Konkheit, a character
based on the infamous Dr. Kronkheit, were
presented:
S83 OLEO
ANNOUNCER:
Gypsy Nora Lee lost in
No-Man's land • . •
General Konkheit lost 1n
No-Man's land • . •
Special Bulletin to the
Moronian Army from
General Konkheit:
Dear Boys, Having a wonderful
time.
NARRATOR:
Wish you were here. 52
While all of this was go1ng on
the dictator's nephew, Franz was pining
40
AUDIO
VIDEO
away for his lost love, Louise, Princess
of Berserkia. Hinkle and Magee write a new
song for Franz which he sings on their
radio show and immediately causes the war
884 FRANZ SINGS
to end and Louise to return.
SONG:
We quarrelled, you and I But though we've said 'Good-bye'
My love 1s yours for evermore
For now there's no more war
In my heart.
This empty yearning
Will keep returning
As long as we remain apart
For my heart has no defense
You're all I'm dreaming of
You've conquered me
And I'm your prisoner of love.
There will be no peace for me
Until we cease to be apart
Dear, I surrender
My love so tender
For now there's no more war
In my heart. 53
41
VIDEO
885 HOLLYWOOD SET
AUDIO
NARRATOR:
Hinkle and Magee turn down an
offer to become monarchs over both
countries in favor of accepting a contract
with Republic Pictures.
The burlesque humor of Ready! Aim!
Fire! necessitated that the play run very
quickly and since it had over thirty
actors, eighteen scenes and eighteen
different sets this was a major task.
886 RAKER
Loren Raker, the director, came up with an
interesting solution for working through
the problem:
RAKER:
The show was 'hung' on paper
before goLng into rehearsal or building
and painting started. We found by so doing
we could run the show with great
. .
54
rapLdLty.
NARRATOR:
These pre-rehearsal runs
allowed Raker to see how the scenery was
going to work since most of the sets
consisted of drops and small set pieces
that were flown into position.
The use of
film and slide projections helped to
Q .
42
VIDEO
AUDIO
maintain the cinematic look Edson wanted
the unit to have.
S87 THEATRE
Once again the work of the unit was
very well received, but it still did not
serve as a vehicle for the revival of
vaudeville.
The format was pure musical
comedy, an area of theatre which had
already gleaned the cream of the
vaudeville crop and left countless others
S88 "CLEVER DANCERS"
LOS ANGELES TIMES
walking the streets.
Many of the
vaudevillians were used in other Federal
Theatre productions.
Dale Wasserman was a
stage manager for the Federal Theatre, and
he can recall contacting the vaudeville
unit whenever a specialty act such as a
juggler or an acrobat was needed. 55
The
children's unit did this for many of their
productions.
Finding steady work for all
of the acts must have been a challenge,
and trying to create a new form of
vaudeville that would utilize comic
jugglers, ventriloquists, illusionists and
others was a monumental effort. In the end
as Gene Stone recalled the search for a
43
VIDEO
AUDIO
new vaudeville gave way to the primary
task of putting people back to work:
S89 STONE
STONE:
It was a case really, of doing a
show because of your cast.
The
vaudevillians were on the Project, and our
job was to do something with them • • •
The show in which we really used the
vaudeville talent was Two-A-Day. 56
S90 TWO-A-DAY
NARRATOR:
Two-A-Day, A Cavalcade of
Vaudeville became the unit's swan song. It
opened in October 1938 and ran through May
of 1939.
That summer Congress ended it's
financial support of the Federal Theatre.
Two-A-Day was a history of vaudeville, the
times in which it thrived and the acts
which helped to keep it America's favorite
entertainment for forty years.
The entire
cast was made up of former vaudeville
S91 GILSON
performers who like Lottie Gilson and
S92 MORAN
George Moran played themsleves or
S93 FOY
impersonated stars such as Eddy Foy or
S94 HARVEST MOON
Nora Bayes.
The variety acts were
presented in carefully constructed
44
VIDEO
AUDIO
recreations of not only the acts but also
the costuming, the sets, and the
vaudeville theatres.
The scenes were held
together by an unseen voice of an
announcer who introduced the acts and
commented on the action over the public
address system.
The play opened with an
announcement projected onto a screen that
dedicated the show to the people of
vaudeville.
895 PASTOR'S
As the projection faded Tony
Pastor's 14th Street Theatre appeared, and
acrobats with handle bar mustaches came on
working in a style reminiscent of the
1880's with broad gestures and a lot of
posing.
They were followed by a song and
dance team, and then one of the
S96 ROONEY
vaudevillians doing Pat Rooney, the Irish
dancing comedian's act.
This was followed
by an announcement:
ANNOUNCER:
• • • Those were the jokes
that Grandma laughed at when she was a
girl.
How we've advanced. In 1938 we can
sit by our firesides, turn a dial, and
what do we get? - The same jokes •
57
45
VIDEO
AUDIO
NARRATOR:
The announcer continued with
his social commentary while slides were
projected illustrating the events and
changes from 1880 to 1938.
Tony Pastor's
Theatre was replaced by Miner's Bowery
Theatre where an amateur night was 1n
progress.
Several acts were given the
hook, but one young man stole the show and
began his successful career in show
S97 CANTOR
business. This was Eddy Cantor. As the set
changed into Weber and Field's Music Hall,
two actors came on and recreated one of
S98 WEBER AND FIELDS
Weber and Field's routines. The vaudeville
acts continued, and the changes in the
1920's were chronicled by the off-stage
conversations of vaudeville performers:
S99 OLD VAUDEVILLIANS
FIRST MALE:
So he offers me ten weeks out
West on the Pan Time.
Two hundred and
fifty for me and the wife, but I told him
I ain't working for doughnuts.
SECOND MALE:
coast.
You ought to go out to the
You might break into the movies.
FIRST MALE:
Bill Wilson went out there
last year to get in the films and all he
46
AUDIO
VIDEO
got was sunburn • • • You jugglers are
lucky.
You don't have to worry about
gettin' new gags.
SECOND MALE:
Yeh, I've been doin' my act
for twenty years now.
It still goes
Three hundred fifty for a juggling
Any my kid wants to go to law
act •
school.
SlOO EVANS' SET
58
NARRATOR:
At var1ous points in the play
the audience met Mary and David Evans, a
marr_ied couple, who comment on the social
changes that occured during the period of
the play.
They were newlyweds when they
first appeared. William Jennings Bryan was
running for President again, and David was
complaining about the inefficiency of
street cars.
By 1915 Mary had become
somewhat liberated, and because she was
seldom home, David complained about eating
too much canned food.
During the 1920's
Mary forbade David from investing in the
stock market, and then in 1938 David told
his son-in-law how he saved the family
47
VIDEO
AUDIO
from ru1n by not getting caught in the
1929 stock market crash.
SlOl BIMBO
Bimbo the Clown had the perfect act
for illustrating the crash.
As stock
market traders were yelling "Buy, buy
buy!", Bimbo piled tables into a shakey
tower.
While the stocks reached their
height, Bimbo put a barrel on the top
table and climbed into it.
As the market
grew more and more unsteady, the barrel
began to wobble; the brokers were yelling
"Sell, sell!"
The market crashed just as
Bimbo fell to the stage.
Then the old
vaudeville friends returned talking 1n
Sl02 PALACE
front of the Palace Theatre.
FIRST MALE:
How's everything?
SECOND MALE:
Not so good • • • I played
one date in the past two months, what do
. k - t h at was a b ene f.1t. 59
you t h 1n
NARRATOR:
As the theatres closed, the
vaudevillians tried to get work outside of
show business, but no one would hire them
0
'
48
VIDEO
AUDIO
for their lack of business experience. The
announcer returned once more to say:
Sl03 PALACE THEATRE
ANNOUNCER:
Today, vaudeville is no longer
a part of the great white way.
In it's
place we have streamlined entertainment,
the radio, the motion picture, the night
club • • • But we can never forget
vaudeville and the immortal stars of
Two-A-Day.
NARRATOR:
success.
60
Two-A-Day was a stunning
During it's seven month run,
actors such as Buster Keaton and the Marx
Sl04 MARX
Brothers made special appearances, and
though tickets ranged in price from a mere
fifteen cents to a dollar and ten cents,
the show grossed seven thousand dollars in
it's first weekend, and was sold out for
the first two weeks of the run. 61
The
overwhelming response was almost a plea to
bring back what had been lost.
Hollywood Citizen News wrote:
The
49
AUDIO
VIDEO
SlOS PUBLICITY
REPORTER:
And when vaudeville comes back
it will owe it's renaissance to the W. P. A.
Private capital's resources are not broad
enough to gamble (here}. [They] are needed
too badly in other directions.
American government • •
The
will definitely
re-establish vaudeville • • • In a short
time • • • it will not need it's patron.
Vaudeville will have come back.
NARRATOR:
62
This was not the case.
As
innovative as these productions were with
their use of multi-media effects and
contemporary humor, vaudeville never
revived. The very structure of the Federal
Theatre worked against such a revival. The
Sl06 SET DESIGN
W.P.A. was in the business of putting the
unemployed back to work 1n the field they
were trained in; it was not a training
program.
Therefore the Federal Theatre
could not hire people without experience
or training nor could they take a young
Sl07 SET DESIGN
performer and train him to be a
vaudevillian.
The structure that had
supported vaudeville for forty years
50
VIDEO
AUDIO
collapsed when the theatres closed, and
the Federal Theatre could not hope to
recreate it. Vaudeville had grown around a
circuit of nation-wide theatres which the
performers traveled to to present their
acts.
This American form of popular
entertainment had been universally
available, but the Federal Theatre was
limited to audiences in specific areas.
For many of the smaller cities that once
had a vaudeville theatre this meant that
there was no live professional
entertainment available to them at all. In
such a situation it was impossible to
re-establish vaudeville as popular
entertainment because the populace at
large had no access to it.
They were
seeing films in their old vaudeville
theatres, and listening to old vaudeville
stars on their radios, but there were no
new acts coming to town.
The Federal Theatre did not create a
new form of vaudeville.
8108 PRODUCTION
The writers
imposed the style of musical theatre onto
the vaudeville performers, and this failed
51
VIDEO
AUDIO
because so many of the specialty acts,
like Bimbo the Clown, could not make the
transition into this form.
Perhaps the
greatest failure was the inability of the
Federal Theatre to understand that
vaudeville was popular entertainment, and
as such it could not be consciously
created.
Vaudeville had appealed to the
people of the cities who saw themselves
~n
the performers, and what they saw was a
Sl09 CASTLES
world of glitter, wealth, and fame.
The
audience saw the Myth of Success before
their eyes, a world where people had gone
from rags to riches.
SllO F. T. ACT
However, the Federal
Theatre performers had gone from rags to
riches and back to rags again.
In their
fall from materialistic grace they lost
their ability to carry the myth, and their
presence on stage must have lacked the
feeling of promise it had once had.
The
image was unreal; the illusion was broken;
and the artists appeared somewhat worn and
tarnished by the changes that had happened
to them.
52
VIDEO
AUDIO
Slll JUGGLERS
Popular entertainment grows out of
social soil of shared values, symbols, and
needs of the middle and working classes. 63
Like some large snake that periodically
sheds it's skin, popular entertainments
move through a culture, and in the process
Sll2 BERT WILLIAMS
are shed and replaced by new ones.
Once
something has been shed, it is lost.
Popular entertainment is therefore always
~n
S113 POSTER
the process of becoming.
Dale Wasserman was accurate
~n
his
assessment of the Federal Theatre
vaudevillian:
Time had passed them by.
The sight of them doing their old acts
~n
government sponsored plays could never
again seem as bright as a M.G.M. musical.
S114 POSTER
However, the effort that they made in
behalf of the Federal Theatre should not
be underestimated, for in many ways it was
their work which defined the Los Angeles
Sll5 POSTER
Project. Perhaps this song from Follow the
Parade best defines them:
53
VIDEO
AUDIO
SONG:
A falling star, fades out of
~n
It lived it's hour, there
v~ew­
the
, blue It disappears, and now it's gone
I see it die, here from afar I know that I, am like that star I, too, must fall, it is my
eternity I, too, must fall, it
~s
my
destiny Sll6 COSTUME
I grasped for fame, and reached the
heights I saw my name up there in lights
But like a flame, that burns too
bright I, too, must vanish
Sll7 OLD F. T.
VAUDEVILLIANS
~n
the night
And so it ends, the play is
through My star descends, there
~n
the
blue There is no one to hear me now, to
hear my cry And here am I, a falling star. 64
CHAPTER SIX
Notes
1
Albert F. McClean, Jr. American Vaudeville as Ritual
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), p. 24.
2
The Pilgrimage Play was the brain child of Christina Stevenson
who wanted to produce outdoor religious drama that would depict the
lives of the world's great spiritual leaders. Only one production, the
Life of Christ, was ever produced, however, it continued throughout the
1920's. When Stevenson died Harry Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles
Times, continued to produce the play until 1934 when both the
Depression and a fire brought it to a close. The play was originally
staged by Ruth St. Denis who along with her husband, Ted Shawn, had a
studio in Los Angeles. This is where Martha Graham began her dance
training.
3
Charles W. Stein, Ed., American Vaudeville as Seen by Its
Contemporaries (New York: De Capo Press, 1984), p. 335.
4
Dorothea Lange and Paul Schuster Taylor, An American Exodus, A
Record of Human Erosion (New York, 1939 rpt. New York: Arno Press,
1975), p. 144.
5
Hallie Flanagan, Arena, A History of the Federal Theatre (New
York, 1940 rpt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1975), p. 16.
6
Flanagan, Arena. There were three basic tenets that formed the
foundation of the Federal Theatre: 1) Unemployed theatre people wanted
to work and the American public would be entertained by them.
2) Project workers were not on relief. 3) " • • • any theatre
sponsored by the government of the United States should do no plays of
a cheap or vulgar nature but only such plays as the government should
stand behind in a planned theatre program national in scope, regional
in emphasis and democratic in allowing each local unit freedom under
these general principles.", p. 45. The frame work of the Federal
Theatre was derived in part from the 1933 report of the National
Theatre Conference which concluded that the theatrical taste for the
entire nation could not be determined by the New York commercial stage.
It recommended the development of regional theatre which would produce
plays that would reflect the lives of the people in the area where the
54
56
that the effects of the Depression in the city were not that serious.
He said: "The situation is not at all alarming. We do not find it
necessary to feed our unemployed men here. In San Francisco I saw free
soup kitchens. There are none here." By Christmas of 1930 there were
soup kitchens in Los Angeles. p. 109.
21
William E. Leuchtenberg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal
1932-1940 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 2. As many as one and
possibly two million people were wandering the country in search of
work. After awhile, the journey became an end in and of itself, for the
sensation of movement made a person feel that he was at least going
somewhere and doing something.
22
23
24
Lange and Taylor, p. 144.
Flanagan, Arena, pp. 13-14.
Flanagan, Arena, p. 45.
25 Holcomb, p. 20.
26
27
New York staged 242 productions while Los Angeles staged 398.
Flanagan, Arena, p. 272.
28
Each region had a Research Bureau which arranged for the
procurement of scripts, royalty payments, and specific research needed
for various productions. In Two-A-Day this entailed the careful study
of famous vaudeville acts, ~theatres, product ion style, cos turning and
social history from 1880 to 1938.
29
Holcomb, p. 44.
30 Other highly acclaimed productions included: Chalk Dust,
Class of '29, Prologue to Glory, Johnny Johnson, Six Characters in
Search of an Author; the all black productions of Black Empire, John
Henry, and Androcles and the Lion; the Yiddish production of Of Thee I
Sing and the adaptation into French of the Children's Hour. It is
ironic that even though Los Angeles had a large Hispanic population
there were no plays produced in Spanish. Two plays that caused some
controversy were Hauptman's The Weavers and Shaw's Ceasar and
Cleopatra. Hauptman's play was seen as being left wing propaganda while
Shaw's play was seen as being left wing propaganda while Shaw's comedy
was seen by some as being sexually explicit.
31
Other people from the Los Angeles Project who went on to
prominent careers include film directors Vincent Sherman and Nick Ray;
designers Charles Elson, Nelson Baum~, and Scott McClean; character
actors Peter Brocco and Marjorie Benett; and Charles O'Neill who became
an authbr, playwright, and the father of actor Ryan O'Neill.
32
p. 1.
Hallie Flanagan, "National Director's Report," January, 1939,
From the Federal Theatre file at the Los Angeles Public Library.
58
to this was: "The government of the United States is paying your
salary -which means that the shows will have to be so good, you'll be
proud to have your name appear • • • '' See: Flanagan, Arena, p. 52.
45 Oral H.
.
~story o f Da 1e W
asserman, Fe d era 1 Th eatre P roJect
Collection, George Mason University, lent to the author by Mr.
Wasserman.
46
Jack Robinson and Gene Stone, Revue of Reviews, musical score
Federal Theatre Project Collection, George Mason University, n.p.
Photocopy.
47
Production book for Revue of Reviews, Federal Theatre Project
Collection, George Mason University, Director's report, n.p. Photocopy.
48
The Federal Theatre produced other plays of a similar theme
such as Johnny Johnson by Paul Green and It Can't Happen Here by
Sinclair Lewis.
49
Clair Leonard and Gene Stone, Ready! Aim! Fire! musical score
Federal Theatre Project Collection, George Mason University, n.p.
Photocopy.
so
51
52
Ready!, Act 2-1-2.
Ready!, Act 2-1-4.
Ready!, Act 2-6-22.
53
Clair Leonard and Gene Stone, Ready! Aim! Fire!, musical
score, Federal Theatre Project Collection, George Mason University, p.
26A. Photocopy.
54
Production book Ready! Aim! Fire!, Federal Theatre Project
Collection, p. 6. Photocopy. Raker had been a New York director in
the 1920's.
55
Wasserman tapes.
56
Loraine Brown and John O'Connor, Ed., Free, Adult, and
Uncensored, the Living History of the Federal Theatre Project
(Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978), p. 149.
57
Jack Robinson and Gene Stone, Two-A-Day, Federal Theatre
Project Collection, George Mason University, Act 1-2. Photocopy.
58
59
60
Two-A-Day, Act 2-15.
Two-A-Day, Act 2-16.
Two-A~
Day, Act 2-37.
59
61
.
b oak f or Two- A-Day, Federal Theatre PrOJect
.
Product1on
Collection, George Mason University, p. 55. Photocopy.
62
Hollywood Citizen News, 7 November, 1938, as quoted 1n
Two-A-Day Production Bulletin, p. 56. Photocopy.
63
Peter Burke, Popular Culture 1n Early Modern Europe (New York:
Harper and Row, 1983), Prologue n.p.
64
Jack Dale and Gene Stone, Follow the Parade musical score,
Federal Theatre Project Collection, George Mason University, n.p.
Photocopy.
64
Kingsley, Grace. "Women Leading Way to New Vaudeville."
Times, July 5, 1936, Sec. 3, p. 7.
Klondine, Irving. "Footlights, Federal Style."
November, 1936, pp. 621-631.
Lavery, Emet. "After Federal Theatre: What?"
September 27, 1940, pp. 465-467.
Los Angeles
Harper's Magazine,
Commonwealth,
Mahoney, John. "Los Angeles in the Thirties and Forties - A Great
Little Theatre Town." Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1981, Sec. 9,
p. 2.
Medovoy, George. "A National Theatre - For Awhile."
Times, May 14, 1981, Sec. 9, p. 1.
Los Angeles
Rosamond, Gilder. "The Federal Theatre, A Record."
Monthly, June, 1936, pp. 430-438.
Theatre Arts
The Prompter. Los Angeles Federal Theatre Publication. November,
1936. Federal Theatre File at tge Los Angeles Public Library.
The Prompter. Los Angeles Federal Theatre Publication.
December, 1936. Federal Theatre File at the Los Angeles Public
Library.
"Unemployed Arts."
Fortune, May, 1937, p. 132.
Library of Congress Publications
Edson, Eda, Robinson, Jack, and Stone, Gene. Follow the Parade.
Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Dale, Jack and Stone, Gene. Follow the Parade, musical score. Federal
Theatre Project Collection at George Mason University, Fairfax,
Virginia. Photocopy.
Leonard, Clair and Stone, Gene. Ready! Aim! Fire!, musical score.
Federal Theatre Project Collection at Geroge Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Robinson, Jack and Stone, Gene. Revue of Reviews, script and musical
score. Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
---------Ready! Aim! Fire!. Federal Theatre Project Collection at
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
65
---------Two-A-Day, A Cavalcade of Vaudeville. Federal Theatre
Project Collection at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Photocopy.
Production Bulletin for the 1936 Los Angeles Production of Follow the
Parade. Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Production Bulletin for the 1938 Los Angeles Production of Ready! Aim!
Fire! Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Production Bulletin for the 1937 Los Angeles Production of Revue of
Reviews. Federal Theatre Project Collection at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Production Bulletin for the 1938 Los Angeles Production of Two-A-Day,
A Cavalcade of Vaudeville. Federal Theatre Project Collection at
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Photocopy.
Social History
Athearn, Robert G. The American Heritage New Illustrated History of
the United States. Vol. 13 and 14. New York: Dell Publishing
Co., Inc. , 1963.
Beasley, Maurine and Lowitt, Richard, ed. Lorena Hickok Reports on the
Great Depression. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.
Bowman, Lynn. Los Angeles: Epic of a City.
Books, 1974.
Burke, Peter. Popular Culture
Harper Torchbooks, 1983.
Cini, Zelda and Crane, Bob.
Arlington House, 1980.
Cleveland, Robert.
1947.
~n
Berkeley: Howell-North
Early Modern Europe.
New York:
Hollywood - Land and Legend.
California
~n
Our Time.
Charles, Searle F. Minister of Relief.
Press, 1963.
Westport:
New York: Alfred A. Knoph,
Syracuse: Syracuse University
Durant, Alice and John. Pictorial History of American Presidents.
York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1955.
Ekrich, Arthur A., Jr. Ideologies and Utopia, The Impact of the New
Deal on American Thought. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969.
New
66
Federal Writers' Project. California, A Guide to the Golden State.
New York: Hastings House, 1939.
Fleischer, Suri and Keylin, Arleen, ed. Hollywood Album Lives and
Death of Hollywood Stars From the Pages of the New York Times.
New York: Arno Press, 1977.
Ford, John Anson. Thirty Explosive Years in Los Angeles County.
Angeles: Anderson, Ritchie, and Simon, 1961.
Los
Goldstone, Robert. The Great Depression, The United States 1n the
Thirties. New York: Fawcett Premier Books, 1968.
Heiman, Jim. Hooray for Hollywood, A Post Card Tour of Hollywood's
Golden Era. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1983.
Lange, Dorothea and Taylor, Paul Schuster. An American Exodus, A
Record of Human Erosion. 1939, rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1975.
Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
1932- 1940. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
Palmer, Edwin 0. History of Hollywood.
Cawston, 1937.
Vol. 1.
Hollywood: Arthur H.
Weaver, John D. Los Angeles: The Enormous Village 1781-1981.
Barbara: Capra Press, 1981.
Santa
Social History - Periodicals
"Crash Maroons Tourists."
Sec. 1., p. 1.
Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1929,
"Prosperity Unchecked - Hoover Reviews Conditions."
Sec. 1 , p. 1 •
"Stocks Dive Amid Frenzy in 16,410,000-Share Day."
October 30, 1929, Sec. 1, p. 1.
"Roosevelt Elected."
p. 1.
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1932, Sec. 1,
67
Miscellaneous Materials
Bronner, Edwin. The Encyclopedia of the American Theatre 1900-1975.
New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc., 1980.
Jensen, Paul M.
Boris Karloff and His Films.
and Co., Inc., 1974.
Mackey, David R.
1951.
Drama on the Air.
New York: A. S. Barnes
New York: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
Morgan, Barbara. Martha Graham- Sixteen Dances in Photographs.
1941 rpt. New York: Morgan and Morgan, 1980.
Seager, Susan. "The Pasadena Playhouse: Rebirth of A Legend."
publication of the Pasadena Playhouse, no date.
Stoddart, Dayton. Lord Broadway, Variety's Sime.
Funk, Inc., 1941.
Willis, John, ed. Dance World, 1974.
Publishers, 1975.
Vol. 9.
Wood, Dell. "Happy Days Are Here Again."
CAL 684, 1962.
Images,
New York: Wilfred
New York: Crown
Hanky-Tonk Piano.
R.C.A.,
APPENDIX
Sources of Slides
Sl Robert G. Athearn, The American Heritage New Illustrated
History of the United States, Vol. 13 (New York: Dell Publishing Co.,
1963), P. 1146.
S2
S3
Photography Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Athearn, p. 1148.
S4
Zelda Gini and Bob Crane, Hollywood - Land and Legend
(Westport: Arlington House, 1980), p. 76.
ss
.
.
.
e d ., Am er~can
Vaudev~lle
as Seen b y Its
Ch ar 1 es W. Ste~n,
Contemporaries (New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 1984), p. 29.
S6
S7
Stein, p. 23.
Stein, p. 313.
8
S Slide Collection of Dr. William Schlosser.
S9
Jim Heiman, Hooray for Hollywood, A Post Card Tour of
Hollywood's Golden Era (San Francisco: Chronical Books, 1983), p. 23.
SlO Bernar d So b e 1 , A
.
. 1 H~story
.
P~ctor~a
of
Vaudev~'11
e ( New Yor k :
Citadel Press, 1946), p. 110.
Sll
Sl2
Schlosser.
Los Angeles Public Library.
Sl3
Willard H. Wright, "The Mission Play," Sunset (July, 1912),
p. 93. Slide made by Los Angeles Public Library Photography
Department.
S14
Kenneth Me Gowan, Footlights Across America: Towards a
National Theatre (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1929), n.p.
68
69
SIS Saturday Night, April, 1926, p. 18. Slide made by Los
Angeles Public Library Photography Department.
6
Sl "Preparing for the Miracle," Southern California Business,
December 1926, p. 26. Slide made by Los Angeles Public Library
Photography Department.
S17
"Hollywood's New Theatre," Saturday Night, April 17, 1926,
cover. Slide made by Los Angeles Public Library Photography
Department.
S18
Dayton Stoddard, Lord Broadway, Variety's Sime (New York:
Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1941), n.p.
S19
Athearn, Vol. 14., p. 1174.
S20
Alice and John Durant, Pictorial History of American
Presidents (New York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1955), p. 250.
21
S
Maureen Beasley and Richard Lowett, ed. Lorena Hickok Reports
on the Great Depression (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981),
n.p.
S22
S23
S24
Los Angeles Public Library Photography Collection.
Athearn, Vol. 14, P• 1219.
Athearn, Vol. 14, p. 1221.
S25
p. 1.
"Roosevelt Elected," Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1932,
Slide made by the Los Angeles Times.
26
S
Searle F. Charles, Minister of Relief
University Press, 1963), n.p.
(Syracuse: Syracuse
S27 W"ll"
1 1am E • Leuc h ten b erg, Fran kl"1n D. Rooseve 1 t an d t h e New
Deal 1932-1940 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), n.p.
S28
Federal Writers Project, California, A Guide to the Golden
State (New York: Hastings House, 1939), Title page.
S29
Los Angeles Public Library Photography Collection.
S30
Library of Congress Federal Theatre Project at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia.
S31
S32
S33
Los Angeles Public Library Photography Collection.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
70
S34
Jane DeHart Mathews, The Federal Theatre 1935-1939
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), n.p.
S35 Lorra1ne
•
Brown an d Joh n 0 I Connor, Free, Ad u 1 t, an d Uncensore d
(Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978), p. 323.
S36
n.p.
The Prompter, Los Angeles Federal Theatre, November, 1936,
Slide made by the Los Angeles Public Library.
S37
The Prompter, n.p.
S38
Paul M. Jensen, Boris Karloff and His Films (New York: A.S.
Barnes and Co., 1974), n.p.
S 39 Sur1. F 1 e1sc
. h er an d Ar 1 een Key 1 en, L1ves
.
and Death o f
Hollywood Stars (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 35.
S40
S41
S42
S43
The Prompter, n.p.
Brown and O'Connor, p. 11.
The Prompter, n.p.
Brown and O'Connor, p. 5.
S44 Given to the author by Mr. Wasserman.
S45
George Mason University.
S46
John Willis, ed. Dance World, 1974, Vol. 9 (New York: Crown
Publishers, 1975), p. 117.
S47
George Mason University.
S48
deRohan Pierre, First Federal Summer (New York: Federal
Theatre National Publications, 1937), n.p. Slide made by the Los
Angeles Public Library.
S49
S50
S51
S52
S53
S54
S55
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
71
S56
S57
S58
S59
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
60
S
"Follow the P ara de, " Los Ange 1es T'1mes, June 28 , .1936 ,
Sec. 3, p. 2. Slide made by the Los Angeles Times.
S61
S62
S63
S64
S65
S66
S67
S68
Stein, p. 227.
Sobel, p. 61.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
S69
B.arbara Morgan, Martha Graham, Sixteen Dances In Photographs
(1941, rpt. Dobbsferry: Morgan and Morgan, 1980), p. 55.
S70
S71
S72
S73
S74
S75
S76
S77
S78
S
79
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
David R. Mackey, Drama On the Air (New York: Prentice Hall,
Inc., 1951), n.p.
72
S80
S81
S82
S83
S84
S85
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
S86 The p rompter, n.p.
S87
Los Angeles Public Library Photography Collection.
S88
"Clever Dancers Entertain," Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1937,
Sec. 2, p. 7. Slide made by the Los Angeles Times.
S89
S90
S91
S92
S93
S94
S95
S96
S97
S98
S99
S100
SlOl
Sl02
Sl03
S104
The Prompter, n.p.
George Mason University.
Sobel, P• 152.
Sobel, P• 182.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
Sobel, P• 141.
Sobel, P• 133.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
Brown and O'Connor, p. 141.
George Mason University.
Slide collection of Dr. Schlosser.
73
SlOS
Sl06
Sl07
SlOB
Sl09
SllO
Slll
Sll2
Sll3
Sll4
SllS
Sll6
Sll7
Sobel, P• 134.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
Sobel, P• 135.
George Mason University.
Sobel, P. 206.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.
George Mason University.