Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times |...

Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times | Susan Quinn | Passionately written wonderful read

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Furious Improvisat...

	Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times Susan Quinn Walker & Company, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A vivid portrait of the turbulent 1930s and the Roosevelt administration as seen through the WPA?s Federal Theater Project.Under the direction of a five-foot redheaded firecracker, Hallie Flanagan, the Federal Theater Project managed to turn a WPA relief program into a platform for some of the most inventive and cutting-edge theater of its time. This daring experiment by the U.S. government in support of the arts electrified audiences with exciting, controversial productions. Plays like Voodoo Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock stirred up politicians by defying segregation and putting the spotlight on social injustice, and the FT P starred some of the greatest figures in twentieth-century American arts?including Orson Welles, John Houseman, and Sinclair Lewis. Susan Quinn brings to life the politics of this desperate era when FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the chain-smoking idealist Harry Hopkins furiously improvised programs to get millions of hungry, unemployed people back to work. Quinn?s compelling story of politics and idealism reaches a dramatic climax with the rise of Martin Dies and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which turned the FTP into the first victim of a Red scare that would roil the nation for the next twenty years.

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Thoroughly Engaging

It's not surprising that Marie Curie's biographer would write a scholarly and well-researched book about the WPA's Federal Theatre Project, but it was for me, a pleasant surprise to discover just how engaging Susan Quinn has made this story. I felt like I was present for the events she describes, gaining not only an understanding of the times but a genuine experience of them as well. If you're interested in art and politics, and how each influences the other, I highly recommend this book.

Passionately written wonderful read

There are writers who can give us an accurate account of a time in history, and then there are those rare and gifted ones who can take us by the hand and deliver us to the sights, sounds, politics and emotions of another time. Susan Quinn is such an author, and it is no wonder she receives starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and others for this wonderful book. Quinn's tales of Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project are vital, colorful and immediate, almost as if you are reading their stories in today's paper. The courage and creativity of Flanagan and others participating in this great experiment are vividly portrayed. I could feel the hunger and dust of the Great Depression in my own throat. Susan Quinn's book is amazingly well-researched and full of great photos, but what makes it special is the passion with which it is written. Furious Improvisations is just right for readers seeking an inspiring, true story taken from the pages of our nation's history. I highly recommend it!

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Heartfelt Drama

In the story of Hallie Flanagan, Susan Quinn explores a transformative movement in American theater history. A young widow blessed with drive and confidence and luck in love and friendship, Flanagan organized the New Deal's Federal Theatre Project. She fostered liberal ideals: theater of the people and for the people, drama that was immediate and commented on politics, that dealt with situations, including those faced by immigrants and African-Americans, that reflected the range of the American experience. Quinn's meticulous research brings the enterprise vividly to life; it achieved enormous successes, while its boldness made fatal enemies. Hallie Flanagan's project left a legacy of openness and inclusiveness that persists today; Quinn's book is an important contribution to American cultural history.

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A backstage view

There are many stories of the government's response to the crisis of the depression, and even many that tell how writers were served (and how in turn they created a lasting legacy), but Susan Quinn fills an important gap by giving us the story of the federal theatre project and the lifeline it threw to actors, playwrights, directors, producers, and many others for whom the stage was everything. Focusing on the extraordinary Hallie Flanagan, who ran the project over its brief four-year lifespan, Quinn brings the characters, the politics, and the associated temperaments to life. Prominent in her engrossing story is the important effect of the program on audiences across the country, many of whom lived far from cities where plays were traditionally performed. And highly relevant to our time is the difficulty - perhaps impossibility - of balancing artistic autonomy against political sensitivities. Quinn has a delicious story to tell, and she delivers it with confidence, nuance, and panache.

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Best Book on the Federal Theatre Project

I've read a lot of books about the WPA, the four "Federal One" arts programs, and the Federal Theatre Project in particular. Most of these titles are solid, historical and scholarly works, but Susan Quinn's is by far the best on the FTP. It vividly covers a wide range of facts, anecdotes and personalities, and provides a Depression-era context that the average reader will appreciate. It's quite a nice achievement -- the new "go to" book on the subject.

reviews: page 1, 2

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