CF: I'll be back around one or two o'clock. If you want to come out again or something, you can always call me, as I say, because I'll be coming back Monday around eleven or twelve o'clock.

JO: Okay. I'll also be out here later in the spring when I'll be talking to Howard Da Silva.

CF: Oh, yes. He lives up the way here, Howard does.JO; Well, he's in Florida now but-

CF: Oh, is he? Yes, Howard's just up here. He bought a house from a friend of mine. He's just about five minutes from here.

JO: So I'll be seeing him later. What I'd like to know is, you mentioned brieflydownstairs of how you got involved in the Federal Theatre. Was it through George Kondolf in Chicago? I mean, you were in Chicago doing--I know you did Merry-Go-Round.

CF: Yes, I did.

JO: You were then out on the West Coast though?

CF: Yes. But T was just looking, I was just trying to find something under Federal
Theatre. I have a letter here from Hallie. Here's the theatre, symposium
theatre, we had what's her name's up at the symposium. What I've been doingis trying to get a press book together for my daughter of all the things that go way, way back in the theatre and I was trying to separate--there's a hellof a lot of stuff here as you can see. It goes back an awful lot, a long,long time to the Guild program. I was a young actor for the Guild, the Theatre Guild. Then I was head of the Teaching Theatre, too. Then I wasout on the Cape at the Cape Playhouse. I had a letter from Hallie. Here, Federal Theatre, let's see what this is. Here's a letter from Hallie Flanaganhere. Now this was in 1935 and I was the only guy producing in Chicago atthat time. I was tops in it and I had done some production in Chicago. I think that was Maids in Uniform. (Reads letter - unintelligible) "I hope that it does not mean that you will not be able to work on our project.At the Goodman Theatre at that time. Mr. Breen--"that's the Breen who started the ANTA (American National Theatre and Academy) actually--"would make a wonderful trial and a start. Please let me know as soon as you resume your connection with the Federal Theatre in Chicago."Actually I never got to the Federal Theatre in Chicago because I went to Universal Pictures in 1937. This is Life and Death of an American. But actually what happened was that when I came back from the Coast-and here'sa program—you see, I was on a lot of things. I was on the Production Boardand then I was the head for a period of the Dance Project, the year we didthe Dance Project I was the producer for it. George Kondolf was the head of-- and George and I and Hallie, and I think Howard one of the
big dance things. So I was in all areas of it in the last year.When I came back from the Coast in 1938—what are you going to do, tape that?

JO: I've got it on, I've turned it on. And I'd like to get some sense of the chronology of things.

CF: Of the continuity. Well, as far as I'm concerned, I was producing in Chicago. JO: But you had an offer then early on--

CF: Yes.

JO: --to join the project?

CF: Yes, that was in 1935 when Hallie wrote me and said, "Would you be involvedin the Chicago Project?" because I was the only one that was producing at that time in Chicago. I had a series of successes like Girls in Uniform, Merry-Go-Round, and I also had a very successful community theatre there. Now we did all of the good plays, every one of the contemporary playwrights of that time.

JO: Did you know (George) Sklar or was it coincidence that-

CF: I met Sklar here. Sklar was essentially a New York man, and I was essentially a Chicago man. The hope was that I would establish a permanent theatre in Chicago. At that time, you know, there wasn't all this fanfare about establishing regional theatre, but there was a great feeling for theatre on the part of the those people who set up the Goodman Theatre and the so-called, at that time, the little theatre movement, which is a term that is not used now. That's all grown up to be the community theatre and regional theatre, and since I had always been in theatre because even before I went to Chicago, I went to New York and was involved in--as a young actor and then came back to Chicago and I was a young actor there. Then I directed stock companies around the area, even Chautaqua companies. I went through the whole gamut of production, and I was hoping that we could establish something in Chicago. We did. I mean, Merry-Go-Round was a very strong anti-political play of the corruption of politics. And at the same time I got a top guy who was involved in the corrupt politics to back it, (Laugh) because he said, "Listen, any time you want to back a show, I'll back it for you."I said, "Well, this play's about politics, you know, about crime and politics and the connection between the two and the corruption."Be said, "That's all right. I'll back it for you."That was Merry-Go-Round. In fact, they didn't even want it in New York when it was done here, and they tried to get it out of New York because it was too damning a piece of work. However, that was New York and that was theatrein Chicago and I was very heavy in it. The problems of the economic situation in the country at that time, of course, occurred with a big bust. As Variety put it, "Wall Street Lays an Egg." And then the whole country went kaput andluckily the Federal Theatre, as part of the WPA program, came along and turned out 

to be a very vital part of the theatrical history of the United States. To many 

people all of this was boondoggling, but actually it was something that should 

have occurred a long time ago and it was the Government's interesting itself in 

the arts, as it should in the arts all the time as so many European countries do, 

you know, and are involved now more so than we are.But Hallie of course was very successful and very adventurous in the theatre.

JO: Did you know her personally? How did you get to know her?

CF: I'd met her once. Yes, I had met her through the productions I was doing inChicago, and we chatted about theatre and then she had been doing such great things at 'Vassar, you know, she and her husband. He was teaching also there. And she was a natural person, a normal person, the best person to pick up this project, and she did a great job of it because she was a really humanitarian individual as well as a very exciting theatre producer. I had producedin Uniform, which was a German picture in Chicago. It was a play, too, and I did a production and it was very successful. The gal who was in it wassuccessful. We were both the toast of Chicago at that time and we were hired to go to Universal Pictures. So I could do nothing about the Federal Theatre. in Chicago, but when I left Hollywood, in 1937 Universal Pictures changed hands and I had a two-year contract. And this gal who at that time was called Shayne O’Callish and had her name changed to Anne Shepard and later worked with the Group Theatre, didn't like Hollywood and I was essentially a theatre man, so we came back in 1939, just a year before the project closed.

JO: Was it coincidence with George Kondolf coming to New York, too, or was that a reason that he had?

CF: George had--I think George originally was directing stock in Detroit. Imet George primarily in New York, but it seems to me I met him before that I knew of him and when I came to New York in 1939, that's when I was asked on the Board of the Federal Theatre as a producing director. There wereonly about six of them. They were quite tumultuous times because there was then talk of cutting down, cutting down, you know, just like what's going onhere in New York. And there was a strong--I use the word "radical" not in a way to deplore radicalism, but there was a strong feeling for radicalmoves in all of our social lives at that time, which was spearheaded of course by what was going on in the Soviet Union at the time. And there were reasonsfor radicalism here. For Christ's sake, the country was really, you know, up against it. It had been the richest country in the world with greatpromise, it suddenly, you know, it hits the floor. And luckily the guys like Hopkins and Roosevelt and the guys who really are the backbone of the 
social-thinking people of America were doing the job. And there always will be that kind of people in America, you know, solid, well, forward thinking individuals. And the theatre came into its own actually. 
People got to see it who never went to the theatre, as you know, by reading. 

At that time also Orson, you know, who was in and out of Chicago, and I knew 

Orson in Chicago when he was a youngster, as I was. And he was doing it 

with the Mercury Theatre and the black theatre up in Harlem at 150th, a 

fantastic job, all of which has been recorded in the recent book--

JO: John Houseman?

CF: --by John Houseman, an exciting book, with a great picture of Orson and he at work, a great picture. However, it was a great time for people to work and the project was a great thing to be on. It also kept you working and it fed you, you know. So we had some difficult times with the sadness of the need of dropping people off the project, and this called for sit-ins and everything else that made the whole thing a ferment. But we had our problems, and there was a radical, extreme radical, we were all more or less radical in our own way.

JO: Did you have much problem as a courtesy director with formerly the Communist Party?

CF: Well, in a way, yes. In a way, when I chose this play, Life and Death of an American, it was an indictment of America and a young man who had come back from the war, a young kid in a steel mill. His father was killed or died and he had to get a job and it was a sort of a kaleidoscopic view of America and a kid trying to get a job in America and his birth, his life, and his death. And it was written by George Sklar, who was a radical, you know, and a rightly thinking—when I say a radical, he was progressive, you see. And the play excited me because it had great staging possibilities, and I was looking for a play to do then. That was the type of play that interested me. It had something to say and how it could be said dramatically, theatrically. It had theatrical values and it had something about it that was saying something.Since Sklar who was known, you know, to be a radical--I use radical
advisedly, that word. I was met by a delegation to tell me who was going todo the sets and who would be in it and it was a surprise to me that I'd even get that type of people walk in on me and say, "Who are you going to have do this?" or "Who's going to be in it?"I said, "Now forget it. I'll do what I think is best for the show." 
So there was a little bit of a problem there, and I made it clear that whatI felt, since I was directing and producing it, would go. And as a result
we had great people. Howard Bay did a great design job and Howard Bay's avery progressive guy, too. And all of us were interested in such a play,and that was the first thing that Arthur Kennedy got into. In fact, I read about200 or 300 or 400 young men for that part and picked Kennedy for the role. JO: I talked to George Sklar and he said that he thought Kennedy at first was almost disinterested.

CF: Well, Kennedy is a peculiar guy. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He's a sort of a general cynic about things, you know. Do you know Kennedy? JO: No.

CF: Well, he doesn't get excited about things. He had the makings of a good actor. He was just right for this, you know. A director likes to get a person who is close to the type, regardless of the fact that when one uses the word "typecasting" with an offhand approach. A good director wants to find somebodywho has a feeling or an appearance of what he's reaching for, and we had a very good cast, an excellent cast. I think Ossie Davis was in it, too, if I'm not mistaken and his wife, Ruby Dee, and Kennedy was good. Now you know the tragedy of working on the project was you'd rehearse for weeks and weeksand weeks and weeks and everybody would get restless. Then they'd start cutting people off the project, and there was always a ferment, always a ferment. It was always a battle who was going to be in and who's not goingto be in. And since this would cut a lot of people, there were a lot ofpeople who you had to hang onto and others wanted off. And of course Sklar, (Albert) Maltz and Sklar had written for the Theatre Union before and they were guys who were right in the midst of it, and he also wanted a good production. It was difficult to work but it was an interesting play. And it came off quite interestingly. I remember it because (Erwin) Piscator saw it and he invited me to go down to the New School where Piscator started to teach and run a theatre there and asked me to be on the directing course,work with him on the directing'. He liked that play tremendously because it was the type of Brechtian theatre, you know.

JO: How did the projections work? How was that Howard Bay-

CF: Well actually, we didn't have projections. What Howard did was--you see, Piscator's famous play was Good Soldier Schweik and they used a montage,which at that time the expressionistic theatre and impressionistic theatre and the entire post-war First World War German theatre had broken into thisnew type of strong theatre away from the formalistic theatre. And the Soviets also followed with their own type of theatre, but there was a breaking out of naturalism in plays like The Adding Machine and Ghost Song which the Guild didand Masse-Mensch, Man and the Masses, all shows which I was associated with, were things that Piscator liked and the German theatre was the same way, you know; this was the road for all new, strong directors to bring together all forms of staging to create excitement in the audience and plays written for that. And the times were the times of disenchantment with normalisticprocesses of guys making money over other guys, you know. This was a whole period of revolution, all spurred by the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik Revolution. And every country, every country and its art and its theatre was affected by the Soviet Revolution. And certainly our own depression, the big major Depression we were in called for this. And you know, people-you know what happened as the result of that in the McCarthy period, the victimization of people during that period. Anyway, I was involved with that. Then being a member of the Production Board, I would be sitting in on other productions like the Living Newspaper and the Dance Project. After 1939 I then, the project was just closed out. I have an idea this was the last play, and, you know, it was a strong attack on status quo.

JO: Did you have pressure to tone down your production?

CF: No. You mean political pressure from Washington?

JO: Yes.

CF: No. There were disgruntled guys in Washington, as there always will be and always have been, who felt that, you know, what is theatre to them? I mean, who's going to see it in little communities that they're associated with? And then there was always, of course, the anti-Red groups who felt that this was-, you know, Federal Theatre was the beginning of the revolution in the United States and the things they were doing. Because in New York, whichis the knot, you know, the knot that's the center of things, they like
to crack and do away with because the minds here are all minds that are always faster working and New York brings people away from all other areas of the country. And the minds and the creativity was here. At the same time, the theatre, the Federal Theatre, was doing regional work of regional playwrights. We had Paul Green at the . . . and half a dozen excellent playwrights that the Theatre Guild was doing, you know, eventually, and Paul Green’s Green Grow The Lilacs. And Lynn Riggs is another playright. There were many, many playwrights around the country, but the Federal Theatrewas able to produce and we had a children's theatre, and it was just great. Washington, you know, the guys who don't think in terms of art, that people ought to go to the theatre, "Well, let than pay and go into a theatre. They don't need money for things like that." But it's now being spoken of as a veryvibrant part of the canvass of American theatre history. And there's no question about it, many of the guys who came out of that were great guys andmany guys did big things.

JO: Yes, somebody told me the number of scene designs that Howard Bay throughoutFederal Theatre.

CF: Well, Howard's done very well. He's been at Brandeis all these years. Now Orson had problems, you know, and if you read the Houseman book, particularly with the Blitzstein show. That's the crowning achievement of repression as far as that situation, but everybody was for Orson. But Washington got aroundthat. They said, "Jeez, this is a Communistic thing, you know, Blitzstein." 


JO: But you didn't personally feel that kind of thing?

CF: None of it, no, I didn't. There was some attempt to tell me who to cast, who to design or whether they should sit on my shoulder. But I made fast work of that because no director puts up with that type of surveillance, you know.

JO: How about Hallie Flanagan as a boss?

CF: Well, Hallie Flanagan of course was a great woman and she was a liberal woman and a spirited woman, and she was for and with what the guys and people were doing, and there was a whole canvass of things being done here. But there's no question about it that in those days the guys who were working in the arts or in any field that had to do with the awakening of America to its promise, to its so-called manifold destiny, there had to be curative things done and there had to be people, artists, creators who would bring this out their own way, the director, the playwrights, these people feel things deeply and they wanted to contribute to America and its growth, I think. And that's why theydid what they wanted to do, and they want what everybody's saying now, a job for everybody. You know, they're talking about the same talk. Jay Gorney, who wrote "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," he and I worked the musical theatre at the American Theatre Wing. I was head of the Musical Theatre Project and Jay Gorney was the musical guy and I was the theatre guy and I was head of the project. Well, his song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" keeps coming up all the time. We're always in the Depression, and he's been living on the royalties of that all these years.

JO: Yes, there's a song in the Life and Death of an American, "Ballad of Americans."-

CF: Of course, "The Ballad of Americans." Well, "Ballad of Americans" was in another
show, but Alex North and Johnny LaTouche and Earl Robinson did the songs andthe score for the show. And I've seen these guys. Alex North, incidentally, is a great music man in Hollywood. Earl Robinson was it. These were wonderfulguys. You know, these were the salt of the earth, the fellows who worked onthese projects, and they made the theatre important and people could get to see the theatre then. There were more people seeing the theatre then than there are 

seeing the theatre now.

JO: Do you remember some of the other--you were there at the end, but some of the other productions, do you remember?

CF: Well, I remember all of the—Power. I remember the--

JO: Sing For Your Supper?

CF: I remember the Living Newspaper productions. I would say all of the productions that occurred at that time. Yes, there was Abe Lincoln in Illinois. I think that was the one that was done at that time. Prologue to Glory. Abe Lincoln in Illinois was later, but Prologue to Glory was the one done on the project.And then we did some great children's theatre that Sammy Leve was the designer. Pinocchio was one of the big productions. It was a great bunch of people and a great excitement about what was going on, and I think that everything that was done there has been sort of a milestone in the history of the theatre.You see, the theatre here in this country, when you start with the early Guild, the Theatre Guild or the Washington Players down in Washington Square, I go back to the old Provincetown Theatre days, and I remember……it then was more selective and more creative, and there were more creative people. The Village has gone through a great many changes. Today everybody's in theatre, today. Luckily there's been a real upsurge in theatrebecause there's been federal and state money for theatre, you know, universities all spreading out, regional theatres all spreading out. We have been, overthe years, castigated because we had no national theatre. Here's the richest country in the world and you go to every one of the smaller European countries and there's always been a budget for theatre. And here's Washington that had no area for theatre here except for the Arena Stage, you know. And always again the little people who work up from nothing with pins to start, they're the people who are doing things. Then the conscience of America felt that they had to raise some money, so they started building all these big palaces of theatre, you know. And then they were looking around for plays for them. Ws a great, great place but what goes in them is the point. Eventuallythis country and the theatre of the country will become more limited, but it will be more spread out, I think, in your area and in Minneapolis, you know, and in the various universities today that are utilizing theatre and theatre courses and also television and screen. There's going to be and always will be a strong sense of theatre because it's an important thing. It's thefountainhead of the performing arts as far as I'm concerned, and there'll be more selective plays. But you see, we have the off-Broadway theatre andwhen I was there it was off-Broadway. Now it's off-off-Broadway, you see. Anybody who has to get a few people together and open a little storefront, today the critics will find them out. The critics didn't used to go down to these places, you know. Oh, they'd go to see Eugene O'Neill, of course,but today the critics will wander around and pick up shows that are being done everywhere. But coming back here, this is where I came in years ago. I've seen them all from way back when.

JO: How would you place the Federal Theatre then in with the Theatre Guild and the Theatre Union? I guess what I'm asking is, do you think there is an aesthetic to the Federal Theatre or a conscience about the kind of theatre?

CF: Well, put that a little differently. Let's see what you're saying about its conscience. Are you trying to ask whether there was all one type of theatre?

JO: That's right or whether there was a kind of either thematically or formally—CF: I think essentially the people who worked on the Federal Theatre were peoplewho wanted to take America and see it produce theatrically. I think it's--I think Hallie felt that way. I think Hallie felt that the throttle shouldbe wide open for American theatre and American playwrights.

JO: When we say that's the kind of thing the Theatre Union would do or that's the kind of thing—

CF: Without the Theatre Union?

JO: No. Is there—when you use that kind of phrase when you say, "That's the kindof thing the Federal Theatre would do.

CF: Well, the Federal Theatre, yes. The Federal Theatre, because it dependedon money from Washington, had to service the country at large. The Theatre Guild, now the Theatre Guild, or Washington Square Players when they started, were a group who were trying to do new plays from all over and many European plays-, American plays. But they were for New York; they could only think in terms of New York, for people who came to the New York theatre. The idea back of the Federal Theatre, which is now occurring about the regional theatre all over, was to utilize the talents and develop the talents of people and playwrights and actors all over the country so that people all over the country could see their own regional theatre. It used to be and to some extent now,Many actors and actresses won't go out of New York to go on tour, you know. It was a nuisance. But one time all plays toured, but today a lot of themwant to stay in New York, you see. But the regional theatre has an opportunity to offer employment over a period of time for actors, and that's one thing that actors never had, continuity of employment.Each of the various theatre groups, in my knowledge of what went on in New York, was when you had the Theatre Union you had a specialized labor theatre. Then you had the theatre that produced Pins and Needles. That was also an American film theatre that came out of the American Garment Workers. And then there was Orson Welles who was producing the things that he liked to produce, and his work was very effective with the black theatre up in Harlem. Always the theatre reflects the individual who's heading it, always the way.But the Federal Theatre was a national theatre. It was the first national theatre we've ever had, a government-supported, even though it was poverty-originated, it was a theatre that was the first of the national theatres.And the guys in it and the people all over this country who had been involved previously, and there are many, many names, in what was then called the "little theatre" movement, the little theatre movement, they were guys who were brought into this, brought onto this canvass to contribute what they had found out and worked for in their own presentation of plays from England or one-acters and other plays of its kind, and they wanted to work. They wanted to serve the people. And when you get right down to it, the people can't live withoutart, you know. That's something a lot of people in Washington never realized,that business is the thing that makes America famous, riches make America famous. But man doesn't live by bread alone, as we know, and the Federal Theatre had amongst its real idealists and around the country there were playwrights who needed support and needed production. And the tragedy today is that writers are becoming disenchanted with the theatre because television is becoming the dominant entertainment stage of not only of the world but of this, particularly this country, you know. And you know a lot of the stuff that goes on is pretty junky.But I think the regional theatre movement will develop and once the country calms down and settles and gets out of its depression, we will have an effective national theatre. But that all depends on the development of the playwright and the playwright given an opportunity to have his plays produced.

JO: Were you in touch or familiar with the playwrights that were working for theFederal Theatre Project, the people like Arnold Sundgaard or Norman Rosten? CF: I knew Norman Rosten from Chicago. Sundgaard I only knew of his work, yousee. I. never met him but since I was producing plays, I was closer to theElmer Rice kind of guy and what was then the playwrights' movement. And we went through a period with the playwrights' movement, you know, where they had their war with the critics. And that was a phase of theatre in this country where the New York playwrights, I think it was the Playwrights' Theatre it was called, called all the critics members of the Jukes Family.This was the Southern family of mentally defectives and there was a big war about that.The theatre's a very difficult medium. It's the most difficult medium because a film can go on somewhere, a painter can always paint, a bricklayer can always lay bricks. But in the theatre, he can be out in no time, you know. One night and he's cooked, and that's why it's a very difficult thingand that's why it has to be supported. Your university and all the universities around are getting an opportunity now to develop playwrights and players, butit's tough to be successful in New York as (Joseph) Papp is finding out at the Beaumont and everybody has found out at the Beaumont. In fact, they had some very good plays at the Beaumont before Papp came on. This is a rough medium, but I have great hope in this country for the theatre because there's an awakening of the arts. Look at what's happening to ballet.

JO: Do you think that the Federal Theatre had-what did it specifically contribute to the history of the theatre? Loosen up-

CF: It was' very essential what it contributed. It contributed an awakening oftheatre and the presentation of theatre to masses of people at a low price.And also it stirred people up because it dealt with things that were important. It had children's theatre, it had classic theatre, it had contemporary theatre.I remember that there was one production--just think, going back, it's been years since I've been thinking of the Federal Theatre. It was 1939 or 1940, 30 years ago, 40, 50, 60, 70, 35 years ago. You're asking me to think back for 35 years when they did a play like Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. You know, that was done in 50 theatres. Now I think they recently tried, theuniversities tried a plan to present about 40 openings of a play by some playwright, after they chose it. Sklar's play was one, a recent play, and also the guys who wrote Inherit the Wind. They had a play. I don't know whatever happened to that movement. There was an attempt to have all of the colleges, universities, book a play that they chose and give it a booking over a vast circuit. That was part of the Educational Theatre Plan, and Sklar hada play done about two years ago. Where did you see Sklar, in Hollywood?

JO: Yes, in Hollywood.

CF: I don't know how busy-what's he doing now? He had a book that--

JO: He's writing, he said, now. He mentioned this play he had done, I guess, out in the Valley.

CF: That was the one, I think.

JO: A couple of years ago.

CF: I wonder if that was the one that had to do with--no, the one that the guys who wrote Inherit the Wind, whose names just elude me, they did a play on Thoreau,I think. That was one of the plays that was done all over, and then Sklar did a play. And that could happen, a playwright could get a wide acceptance of one play and make himself some royalties. I'm very hopeful about it andI think when you asked the question, "What did the Federal Theatre contribute," it contributed (a) jobs for people in the theatre, (b) an awakening of theatre nationwide, (c) an opportunity of giving to writers, designers, publicists, historians, and producers the means to work.

JO: Do you think by not being so closely tied to Broadway finances or the problemsof Broadway financing, that the Federal Theatre was any more or less experimental or different in the sort-

CF: More experimental. Of course you devised, the Living Newspaper was something that was devised by the Federal Theatre. There was very little creative theatre up in Harlem before Orson Welles went in there and did what he did because he's a creative guy. And there was a very creative children's theatre. And Life and Death of an American, who would have known whether George wouldhave got that on if there wasn't a Federal Theatre or so many other plays. There was a great contribution to theatre, no question about it. Many peoplein the theatre were not theatre people, you know, but look what industry has
 done. You look over the canvass of industry and what's going on today, you 

 know, and the international corruption that goes on and the guys say, "Well, 

 that's part of America" or "That's the way we do business, you know." And 

 they accept that as the way to do business, but there seems to be some other 

 thinking about that, that it's not the way to do business if we've got the means 

 to sell. But I don't want to go into the politics now, our current politics. 

 That's got a lot of publicity.

JO: You mentioned Piscator before and Hallie Flanagan and Arthur Arent said that the Living Newspaper came purely as an American form, it came purely from the newspapers. And I wondered if you--

CF: Who said that?

JO: Arthur Arent.

CF: Arther Arent, yes. And he said that was an original thing?

JO: Yes, and I was wondering whether you think that it is related to epic theatre or the German theatre--

CF: Actually, all this--

JO: I was thinking it might be a political thing to say if it was an American theatre.

CF: All theatre takes from previous theatres. Everything contributes to itselfin theatre. For instance, the guys who produced, when we produced, Lee Simonsonand the Guild produced Masse-Mensch, The Adding Machine and Ghost Song and a lot of the impressionistic plays that were done, that impinged itself on the minds of creative people in the theatre, and when they think in terms of doing that theatre, that was a theatre of the little man, you see, The Good Soldier Schweik in a way, what's going on in the country, you know, what is this?I don't understand it. Why don't you tell me what the answers are? Why are we paying so much for power? Why shouldn't there be a TVA? Is that wrong? Oh, that's socialism; I see. Is that good for us? You know, the theatre needed a voice, all sorts of voices. And the Living Newspaper was the American summation of all the things that occurred internationally, as these things impinged themselves on any creator's mind It applies to a writer or an artist. You know, these things come to them from their own observations. What compels one guy to write a charming little, delightful comedy and what impels him to write something that is gutsy, you know?Take this German director, Wertmuller now who is so bright and effectivein a film. I don't know whether you've ever seen any of the films like The Seduction of Mimi and Love and Anarchy and Swept Away and the one she just did, Seven Beauties. Here's a woman that comes out of Italy and whango! She really creates a stir with her own gut, with her own gut response to that'sgoing on around her, and I think that applies to all artists. You respond 
 to what goes on around you and from what you feel naturally from your own instincts. And then you apply yourself in that direction. And if you want security, then you get a job as a postman, that's all. And if you don't want security, like there's no security in the theatre and never was, then you've got to take your chances. If you can live by it, it's good. I've managed to live by it. (Laugh)

JO: Did you have much sense in the change when Phil Barber was earlier the New York City head and then Kondolf came in?

CF: Phil Barber was around then. Where is Phil now?

JO: He's up in the Berkshires. I don't know if he still does but he ran a large entertainment hotel.

CF: Yes, somebody told me that he was up there, a very nice guy. Kondolf, youtake a man like Kondolf, here's a guy that might have been just producing,you know; ordinary plays as a producer. But when he got on the project, George had a feeling for what was going on in the country, and he was under terrific pressure by the political elements. There was continuous political pressure. You know, it was nothing for people to be marching up and down the aisles saying, "Quit, don't do this, don't work," and all of that. We had all sortsof ferment, but those were times when there was ferment. And the reason for it, there's always a reason for it, you know. If the times are placid, peoplewill be placid, and the theatre will be placid. If the times are exciting, then the theatre gets exciting. It's what goes on around you. Some people run for cover and other people say, "Let's do something." And those are the people that count. That's what they're celebrating this year about, the people who said, "Let's do something." Isn't that right?

JO: That's right except I think that there isn't the social theatre, the social consciousness in the theatre now that there was in the thirties.

CF: it's true there's not the social theatre, but we are just coming out of atailspin. Playwrights, young fellows, young writers, they're corning out of the tailspin of Viet Nam. And they're also in another tailspin of where they're going to get jobs from this point on. And I think that affectswriters because the Depression, the Great Depression, occurred when things were really black in this country and the guys that were living then and they were living in the blackness. Here all through this deepening depressionand it isn't at all, believe me, like those days. There's no comparison when they say, "This depression is close to the others," because you'vegot Social Security, you've got Welfare, you've got food stamps, you've got rent subsidy. There's no comparison. People then had nothing to eat. Wheredo you see guys selling apples on the street corner anymore? Nowhere.
They go to Welfare and they get a check to buy a case of apples, that's all, and eat them, take them home. So things are a little different than those days.

JO: Do you think it was because it was closer to the edge then that there was more--

CF: We were on the edge, but there wasn't the social sponges that mopped up someof the discouragement that was around then. Those were tough days. Today, for Chrissakes, you know, if you go hungry, it's because somebody's holding out on you somewhere down in the South. The small-town political bosses may be holding out on the blacks and not giving than food stamps or not seeing that theyget them, you know. But there are food stamps to be gotten. There weren't then. They had to have these jobs, and how much were these jobs? $25.00 a week. Why you get more than that for just a rent subsidy today. Of course everything's gone up but who gets $25 a week today, $125 a month top salary to produce this, $200 a month, $225, $250, you know? No comparison.So the social theatre, well, actually the plays that have been writtenabout Viet Nam. That's what the guys have been writing about. Those are the sticks and bones and things like that. And black theatre, this is the time for black theatre. You see, the social situation now is the awakening ofthe black and the black moving away from the ghetto, the explosion away from the inner cities. That's the big thing today.Well, the ethnic situation is the social situation of today, unquestionably, the right to have jobs, the right to have integration, the right to live where the other guy is, to go to the theatre where the other guy is. It's an ethnic situation today. It's the emergence of the black from the ghetto and theattempt to make up in one full swoop all the indignities that were done years back, and that just doesn't work.

JO: Do you have a sense, were there blacks in the Federal Theatre, outside of the Lafayette Theatre Project?

CF: Well, you know, the blacks--well, you say the sense. In what respect? JO: Were there actors or technicians?

CF: Well, there were actors getting a chance to act. Now I directed--there was an American Negro Theatre. There was a program; I directed a production uphere, up in Harlem. It was then known as "The American Negro Theatre."
There was very little theatre for the blacks, you know. Harlem was a place tovisit and see all the gals, you know. But there was a theatre there and actors, 
 and today there's an emergence of a black theatre. A black theatre is the
 big contribution of the times you're in today. People living today, people in the theatre, the one thing is what has contributed to the theatre today. Where has it changed? What is the development of it? I could say the development of it is that there is a black theatre. Now that's not saying all the plays aregood, but all the social plays were never always good. In the old days you had Clifford Odets, you had Irwin Shaw, you had Waiting for Lefty, you had
that ferment, the social ferment. The black was just shoving brooms around atthat time. They weren't even considered in those days. Today the black has moved out of this area and that's the development of the theatre. The Negro Ensemble Company, the money that's given to young blacks to produce someplays, Papp's help to the blacks, and the contribution of the black to Rock. And that, I believe, in these times that we're living in now, that's the big contribution of the theatre today. Two things, the black and the emergenceof money for the regional theatres, you see, like the Kennedy Center and others. And they're bringing things in and I think those are two important contributions. They're different times you're living in. They're different times and if jobscome up and the country gets on its feet again, then the theatre will forge forward. They'll learn that the big places are there and they can probably find plays for them. The country has to get calm, not placid, but there's always going to be growth, there's always going to be unhappiness, there'salways going to be family problems, there's always going to be international rivalry. There's always going to be corruption, there's always going to be one guy eating the other guy. There are always going to be dramatic motives. There's never going to be placidity or peace. That's unbelievable. There's no peace. Look at the Israeli situation, look what goes on there. Why isn'tthere a strong play about that in this country? There are many Jews in New York; there's a huge population. Where is a play about the Arab? It's too risky, tootricky to do, you know. Who's writing it? There's always going to be themes in the theatre, always going to be themes. But big contributions to thetheatre are very simple. The theatre got away from formalism by the AmericanTheatre Guild, the Washington Square Players, the little theatres that did things all over the country, and the European theatre. Impressionism, expressionism, that was in the thirties, post-World War I. Then in the thirties we had the Big Depression, then we had the social theatre, the Theatre Union, the Group Theatre, an offshoot from the Theatre Guild butwanting to do things more important. Then we had a big feeling for musical theatre and that was our big, strong forte, a good musical theatre which you don't have them today, you see. And that broke the ice as far as thenamby-pamby musical things that used to be done in England, you know, the easy conversation type musical theatres. And we had great, strong musicals. Thatwas our big voice. That's gone by. We haven't got that so much. We have a few left. Prince is one of the only guys that's alive who's doing that type of thing, Prince and where's Lesser? You know, he's a great guy. Where'sFoy and Martin who produced, where is Rodgers and Hammerstein. Occasionally-- Hammerstein is dead--Rodgers is ill but he's doing a thing. Lerner and Lowe, when have they produced anything again? They're going to revive My Fair Lady. It's revivals, revivals, revivals, all the way along. We don't have anything else but revivals. Occasionally from England you get some strong stuff.