The Theatre Nobody Knows: Workers' Theatre in America, 1926-1942

Abstract

In the midst of the currently fashionable lament over the death of the drama, or of the theatre, or of the idea of a theatre, it is strange that the Workers' Theatre, deliberately created to meet a specific cultural ideal and productive of its own particular theory, literature, and style of production, could exist for nearly twenty years, flourish in popularity for half that time, and yet remain unknown. Stranger still that the only study which is even partially comprehensive should choose to view this theatre as an organ of the Communist Party, to be given the same condescending treatment as that political movement itself. Such are the dangers of treating theatre as a weapon rather than as an art.