Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Performing Arts
Episode: Rania Karoula, "The Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939: Engagement and Experimentation" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)
Description: Rania Karoula's The Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) offers a readable and engaging summary of an important chapter in American theatre history. Now safe from the 30s-era anti-Communist backlash that led Hallie Flanagan and others to downplay the influence of Communist avant gardes on the FTP, Karoula reveals the intellectual and artistic dialogue between artists affiliated with the FTP and left-wing theatre artists including Meyerhold, Piscator, and Brecht. Karoula tracks how the FTP tried to incorporate these aesthetic innovations into the American stage but was ultimately unable to ward off HUAC persecution. This book will be of int...