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Pointing to the Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Extract

As many historians of American theater and culture know, the Fenwick Library of George Mason University (GMU) became the home in 1974 to a major collection of Federal Theatre Project (FTP) materials. As many researchers also know, some FTP material was removed from GMU to the Library of Congress in the fall of 1994. In this essay, I will bring Theatre Survey's readers up to date on the status of the FTP collection, which, because of its continuing development over two decades, houses not only a considerable body of FTP material but also early records of the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA). ANTA in its earliest days was a worthy successor to the FTP in the drive to have a national theater in the United States. Since 1980, all of these holdings have been an integral part of the Center for Government, Society and the Arts (CGSA) at GMU. CGSA has been the site of many activities exploring the relationship between our government and the arts, ranging from conferences on theater and cultural studies to our own theatrical productions of FTP materials, some of which I will outline here.

Type
Re:Sources
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1995

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References

1. For background see O'Connor, John and Brown, Lorraine, Free, Adult, Uncensored: the Living History of the Federal Theatre Project (Washington D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978).Google ScholarLarson, Gary O., The Reluctant Patron (Philadelphia: U. of Penn. Press, 1983).CrossRefGoogle ScholarCole, John Y., “Amassing American STUFF: The Library of Congress and Federal Arts projects of the 1930s.” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Fall 1983).Google ScholarThe Federal Theatre Project Collection Catalogue (Washington: Library of Congress, 1987)Google Scholar.

2. A future article will detail those comparisons.