The FTP

A
The Federal Theatre Project is one of the best examples of how the government exercises strict control over the programs they fund. The FTP functioned from 1935 to when its funding was terminated in 1939. In that brief period, it was responsible for some of the most innovative staging of its time. Many of these projects were very controversial regarding just about everything from the federal funding for artists to the quality of the work. Many sub-factors led to the termination of the FTP, but perhaps the real factors of its downfall were the controversial, racial, and political statements that the FTP was making.
B
"Our Federal Theatre, born of an economic need, built by and for people who have faced terrific privation, cannot content itself with easy, pretty or insignificant plays. We are not being given millions of dollars to repeat, however expertly, the type of plays, which landed 10,000 theatre people on relief rolls. By a stroke of fortune unprecedented in dram...