Activist Theater

On February 21, 1934, John Wexley’s drama They Shall Not Die—highlighting the infamous rape charges against the “Scottsboro Boys”—premiered at the Royale Theatre on West 45th Street. With its condemnation of southern racism and injustice, the play helped usher in a new era on the Broadway stage. 

Art and politics in New York have long gone hand in hand, particularly in the 1930s. The Great Depression spurred the growth of radical movements whose members viewed art as a weapon for exposing the failures of the American political and economic systems. 

Theater activists sought to use the stage to raise workers’ consciousness and to break down the traditional “wall” between performers and audiences. Playwrights and actors pioneered experimental forms of theater to confront issues such as labor exploitation, racial injustice, and the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe. Forming new troupes or working under the auspices of the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project (FTP), theater activists wrote plays by committee, offered discounts for workers, and performed at street rallies. 

In 1939, Congress cut funding for the Federal Theatre Project. After 1945, the Cold War political climate between the United States and the Soviet Union limited expression on the New York stage. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Congress accused Broadway of Communist infiltration. Key New York theater figures were “blacklisted”—denied work because of their political affiliations—and several left for Europe. Yet over time, new generations of activists drew on the social concerns of New York’s Depression-era stage.