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Rose McClendon and the Black Units of the Federal Theatre Project: A Lost Contribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Jay Plum
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Extract

Although the then-called Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project arguably played a pivotal role in the development of African-American theatre, Rose McClendon (1884–1936) is unarguably one of the most overlooked contributors to its history. This oversight is extremely puzzling, in view of the fact that McClendon co-directed the Harlem Unit with John Houseman when it opened in 1935. Five years later Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan attributed much of the initial success of the unit, as well as the very idea of creating separate black units, to McClendon. Yet, except for a paragraph in Flanagan's Arena, little else has been recorded about McClendon's participation in the Project. Even the official history of the Negro Units written by the Federal Theatre Project's Department of Information claims that “guiding the destinations of the Negro Theatre at its inception were John Houseman and Orson Welles.” The history makes no reference to McClendon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , November 1992 , pp. 144 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1992

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References

1 Flanagan, Hallie, Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1940), 62–63Google Scholar.

2 Department of Information, “WPA Negro Theatre,” 21 December 1937,5–6. Record Group 69, Records of the Federal Theatre Project, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

3 “Final Services Held for Rose McClendon,” Amsterdam News, 18 July 1936, 1Google Scholar.

4 Literary historians traditionally refer to the Harlem Renaissance as the period between 1921 and 1931. Within recent years, however, some scholars have challenged this periodization and argued that later works should be considered a part of the movement as well. See, for example, the introductions to The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations, ed. Singh, Amritjit, Shiker, William S. and Baldwin, Stanley (New York: Garland, 1989)Google Scholar; and The Harlem Renaissance Re-examined, ed. Kramer, Victor A. (New York: AMS Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

5 Locke, Alain, “The New Negro,” in The New Negro, ed. Locke, Alain (1925; reprint, New York: Atheneum, 1986), 14 (page references to reprint edition)Google Scholar.

6 Montgomery Gregory, “The Drama of Negro Life,” in The New Negro, 160, outlined the dream of a national African-American theatre: “The hope of Negro drama is the establishment of numerous small groups of Negro players throughout the country who shall simply and devotedly interpret the life that is familiar to them for the sheer joy of artistic expression.”

7 Locke, 8.

8 Jones, Dewey Roscoe, “Race Actors Find Broadway Hard Road to Travel, But No One Gives Up Hope,” Chicago Defender, 26 November 1932, 10Google Scholar.

9 “Dramatic Personae,” crisis, April 1927, 55.

10 Other members of the advisory board included Lillian Alexander, Etuah Rochon Boutte, Helen Brooks, W. E. B. DuBois, Robert Dunmore, Jessie Fauset Harris, Alain Locke, Hannah Monriatuy, Grace Nail, Josiah Navel, Mary White Ovington, Ruth Roberts, and Elizabeth Stuyvesant.

11 Andrews, Regina, quoted in “The Experimental Theatre Ready,” Amsterdam News, 28 January 1931, Theatre Scrapbook, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New YorkGoogle Scholar.

12 Andrews, Regina, “Three Years with the Harlem Experimental Theatre—Its Purpose,” New York Age, 11 April 1931, 6Google Scholar.

13 Andrews, Regina, “The Voice of Regina Andrews” in Voices of the Black Theatre, ed. Mitchell, Loften (Clifton, NJ: James T. White, 1975), 69Google Scholar.

14 “Current Little Theatre Plays,” Amsterdam News, 22 April 1931, Theatre Scrapbook, schomburg.

15 Brenda Ray Moryck, “Harlem Experimental Theatre Gives 3 Plays,” New York Age, 2 May 1931; and Edward G. Perry, “Current Little Theatre Plays,” Amsterdam News, 29 April 1931, both from Theatre Scrapbook, Schomburg.

16 Pierre Loving; quoted in Perry, Edward G., “Current Little Theatre Plays,” Amsterdam News, 6 May 1931, Theatre Scrapbook, Schomburg. Generic and ellipsis in originalGoogle Scholar.

17 Lewis, David Levering, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 240Google Scholar.

18 This quotation and the next are from a form letter, a copy of which, dated 19 June 1935 and signed by McClendon, is preserved in the Paul Green Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. Members of the Executive Board included Morris McKinney, chair; Campbell, vice-chair; McClendon, secretary and treasurer, Walter Whitfield, recording secretary; Jerry Werlin, technical director; Joseph Foster, publicity manager; Lena Birnstein, play reader; Alston Burleigh, musical director, Oliver E. Foster, musical director; William Challee; and John Velasco. Cheryl Crawford, Clifford Odets, Countee Cullen, Paul Green, Albert Bein, Herbert Kline, Lewis Leverett, Lena Birnstein, Dorothy Patten, Ruth Nelson, Mary E. Thiell, Mildred Mesirow, Guy Monneypenny, Margaret Barker, and Edward Rice served as the Advisory Board for the company.

19 Ibid.

20 Ford, James W., “Negro Peoples Theatre Offers Waiting for Lefty on June 1,” Daily Worker, 28 May 1935, 2Google Scholar.

21 McClendon, Rose, “As to a New Negro Stage,” New York Times, 30 June 1935, (sec. 10) 1Google Scholar.

22 Mitchell, Loften, Black Drama: The Story of the American Negro in the Theatre (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1967), 100Google Scholar.

23 Flanagan, 54.

24 Foster, Joe, “Negro People's Theatre,” Daily Worker 28 May 1935, 5Google Scholar; generic and emphasis in original. This idea was echoed by more mainstream black leaders like DuBois. Before his resignation from the NAACP in 1935, he rejected the notion of integration for its own sake, arguing “that in the last quarter of a century, the advance of the colored people ha[d] been mainly in the lines where they themselves, working by and for themselves, have accomplished the greater advance.” W. E. B. DuBois, “Segregation,” Crisis, January 1934, 20; quoted in Giddings, Paula, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (1984; reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1985), 211, n. 28Google Scholar.

25 For this view of Roosevelt, see Giddings, 221.

26 Flanagan, 62–63.

27 Ibid. 63.

28 Houseman, John, Run-Through: A Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980), 178Google Scholar.

29 Houseman also intimates that the Communist Party was an influential factor in the decision to have McClendon co-direct the Harlem Unit. The Party supposedly wanted a well-known African-American artist who was sympathetic to the activities of the United Front to head the project. McClendon was an ideal candidate, considering her involvement with alleged Front organizations such as the Friends of Harlem, Theatre Union, and the Sponsoring Committee for Production of a Soviet Film on Negro Life. It is puzzling, however, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that they have no file on record for McClendon. J. Kevin O'Brien, of the F.B.I., letters to the author, 4 February 1991, and 20 November 1991.

30 Anderson, Jervis, This Was Harlem: A Cultural Portrait, 1900–1950 (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982), 242–246Google Scholar. See also The Complete Report of Mayor LaGuardia's Commission on the Harlem Riot of March 19, 1935, Mass Violence in America, ed. Fogelson, Robert M. and Rubenstein, Richard E. (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969)Google Scholar.

31 According the Federal Theatre Project's Department of Information, “WPA Theatre,” 21 December 1937,5–6, the Harlem Unit at its peak listed 502 members.