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Notes
1 Elizabeth Dilling, The Red Network: A “Who's Who” and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots (Kenilworth, IL: E. Dilling, 1935), 1.
2 See, for example, Ellen Schrecker, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), ch. 2.
3 New Theatre, September/October 1933, 3. Please note: since the numbering for New Theatre is inconsistent, only the month and date are provided. For scholarship on the League of Workers’ Theatres/New Theatre League see Morgan Y. Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon: The Left-Wing Theatre in New York 1929–1941 (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963), 23–53; Douglas McDermott, “The theatre nobody knows: workers’ theatre in America, 1926–1942,” Theatrical Survey, 6, no. 1 (May 1965), 65–82; Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage: American Drama and Theater of the Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 27–57, 151–217; Ira A. Levine, Left-Wing Dramatic Theory in the American Theatre (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Research Press, 1985), 88–122 passim; Colette Hyman, Staging Strikes: Workers’ Theatre and the American Labor Movement (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997), 61–83. Of these, Levine gives the most careful consideration to the organization's relationship with the Soviet Union.
4 New archivally based works on the American Communist Party include John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2003); Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and F. I. Firsov, eds., The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1995); Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, The American Communist Movement: Storming Heaven Itself (New York: Twayne, 1992).
5 Haynes and Klehr, In Denial, 13–14. For a recent debate about some of the more extreme claims in this book see Maurice Isserman, “Open archives and open minds: ‘traditionalists’ versus ‘revisionists’ after Venona,” and a response by Harvey Klehr, “Reflections of a traditionalist historian,” American Communist History, 4, no. 2 (2005), 215–36.
6 Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), xiv.
7 Although Denning gives theater a central place in his study, he does not mention either the Workers’ Theatre League or the New Theatre League, which provided inspiration for many of the groups examined. See Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (London: Verso, 1996). For scholarship on the Soviet “cultural front” see the work of Sheila Fitzpatrick, especially Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992).
8 Daniel Friedman, “A brief description of workers’ theatre in the 1930s,” in Bruce MacConachie and Daniel Friedman, eds., Theatre for Working-class Audiences in the United States, 1830–1980 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 111–20; Paul Sporn, Against Itself: The Federal Theater and Writers’ Projects in the Midwest (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 76–121.
9 See for example Edwin Seaver, “Potemkin,” New Masses, 2, no. 1 (November 1926), 14–15; Harry Dana, “Soviet culture Year Eleven,” New Masses, 4, no. 6 (November 1928), 9.
10 On John Reed Clubs see A. B. Magil, “Revolutionary writers and artists join in working class fight,” Daily Worker, 11 October 1930. For secondary sources see Eric Homberger, “Proletarian literature and the John Reed Clubs 1929–1935, American Studies, 13, no. 2, 221–44; Laurie Ann Alexandre, The John Reed Clubs: A Historical Reclamation of the Role of Revolutionary Writers in the Depression, M.A. thesis, California State University, Northridge, 1977.
11 Lee Strasberg, founder of the Group Theatre and collaborator with workers theaters in the 1930s, got his start as a director for the Chrystie Street Settlement Players. Jay Williams, Stage Left (New York: Scribner's, 1973), 52.
12 Walt Carmon, “John Reed Club,” New Masses, 5, no. 10 (March 1930), 21; “Chicago,” New Masses, 6, no. 11 (April 1931), 22; Magil, Daily Worker, 11 October 1930. See also Alexandre, “The John Reed Clubs,” 135; Sporn, Against Itself, 157.
13 Dobrin Michev, Mezhrabpom—Organizatsiia Proletarskoi Solidarnosti (Moscow: Mysl’, 1971), 125.
14 For an overview of Mezhrabpom activities see Willi Münzenberg, Solidarität: Zehn Jahre Internationale Arbeiterhilfe 1921–1931 (Berlin: Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1931). On the broader history of the organization see Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg: A Political Biography (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1974).
15 WIR Organizational Bulletin, New York District, July 1931, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (henceforth citied as RGASPI), f. 515 (CPUSA), op. 1, d. 2578, 38. See also “Otchet o rabote WIR na period 1930 do leta 1931 g,” 75–84. I used the microfilmed archival collection at the Library of Congress for American Communist Party files. For Comintern cultural agencies I consulted the records in Moscow.
16 See Daily Worker, 25 August 1930; 17 September 1930.
17 Williams, Stage Left, 41, 85; B. Reines, “The Workers’ Laboratory Theatre of the W.I.R.,” Workers Theatre, 1, no. 4 (July 1931), 8–10.
18 On the emergence of agitprop brigades see Lynn Mally, Revolutionary Acts: Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917–1938 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 146–80.
19 Williams, Stage Left, 42–3.
20 On John Bonn see Ben Blake, The Awakening of American Theatre (New York: Tomorrow Publishers, 1935), 17–18; Douglas McDermott, “The odyssey of John Bonn: a note on German theatre in America,” German Quarterly, 73 (May 1965), 325–34.
21 Williams, Stage Left, 44.
22 Drama Bureau of the W.C.F., “The election campaign and the tasks of the Workers Theatre,” Workers Theatre, 1, no. 7 (October 1931), 2.
23 “Report of the Conference that Organized the Workers Cultural Federation of the New York District, 14 June 1931,” RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2579, 61–75.
24 RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2579, 62. See also “Calls meet of cultural bodies [sic],” Daily Worker, 28 May 1931; A. B. Magil, “Workers’ Cultural Federation to mean big step forward,” Daily Worker, 2 June 1931.
25 RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2579, 63.
26 On these debates see Zenovia Sochor, Revolution and Culture: the Bogdanov/Lenin Controversy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1988); Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); Mark D. Steinberg, The Proletarian Imagination: Self, Modernity, and the Sacred in Russia 1910–1925 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).
27 RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2579, 67; Reines, Workers Theatre, 1, no. 4 (July 1931), 9.
28 Hallie Flanagan, “A theatre is born,” Theatre Arts Monthly, 15, no. 1 (1931), 910.
29 “Chicago John Reed Club,” New Masses, 7, no. 3 (August 1931), 21; “Chicago Blue Blouses,” New Masses, 7, no. 5 (October 1931), 20; “Blue Blouse Dramatic Studio,” Workers Theatre, 1, no. 5 (August 1931), 21.
30 William Weinberg, “First shock brigade,” New Masses, 7, no. 7 (December 1931), 26.
31 “An invitation; we answer the call,” Workers’ Theatre, 2, no. 2/3 (June/July 1932), 3–4.
32 Letter from Margarete Lode to Arthur Pieck, 31 August 1929. Stiftung Archive der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR in Bundesarchiv (SAPMO), NY 4130/60, S. 3.
33 Workers Theatre, 1, no. 3 (June 1931), 3–1. Similar calls were printed in the Daily Worker. See “Los Angeles Rebel Players plan conference,” Daily Worker, 4 April 1931.
34 “An die Agitprop-Abteilung des ZK der Kommunistischen Partei der Vereingten Staaten,” August 8, 1931, RGAPSI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 8, 27–28. See also I. Platner, “Polozhenie rabochego teatra v Amerike,” Biulleten’ No. 1 Orgkomiteta Internatsional’noi Rabochei Teatral’noi Olimpiady (Moscow, 1932), 11.
35 “News,” Workers Theatre, 1, no. 7 (October 1931), 31; B. Reines, “The experience of the International Workers’ Theatre as reported at the First Enlarged Plenum of the IWDU,” Workers Theatre, 1, no. 9 (December 1931), 3.
36 Reines, Workers Theatre, 1, no. 9 (December 1931), 4.
37 John E. Bonn, “Situation and tasks of workers theatres in USA,” Workers Theatre, 2, no. 5 (August 1932), 11.
38 “Workers’ theatres plan conference and Spartakiade,” Daily Worker, 14 April 1932.
39 “Chronicle of the international revolutionary theatre movement,” International Theatre, no. 2 (1932), 16.
40 International Theatre, no. 2 (1932), 16. See also “ ‘ Workers’ Theatre’ to be out May 1 in printed form,” Daily Worker, 25 April, 1932.
41 The literature on socialist realism is vast. For some of the most influential works see Katerina Clark, The Socialist Realist Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1981); Regine Robin, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992). For a recent re-evaluation see Evgeny Dobrenko, Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005).
42 “We are building a theatrical revolutionary front,” International Theatre, no. 3 (1933), 43.
43 “Close up the ranks!,” International Theatre, no. 3 (1933), 4.
44 “We are building a theatrical revolutionary front,” International Theatre, no. 3 (1933), 43.
45 “Some aspects of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in the United States,” 12 November 1932, RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 17, 135.
46 Harry Elion, “The problem of repertory,” Workers Theatre, 3, no. 3 (April 1933), 3.
47 “John Reed Club-Experimental Theatre,” “Workers Laboratory Theatre of the WIR,” Workers Theatre, 3, no. 3 (April 1933), no page number.
48 Himelstein, Drama was a Weapon, 54–74.
49 “New Theatre,” New Theatre, September/October 1933, 1.
50 IURT Protocol, 4 October 1933, RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 41, 81–82.
51 “New Theatre,” New Theatre, April 1934, 2.
52 John E. Bonn, “The International Workers Theatre Olympiad,” New Theatre, September/October 1933, 18.
53 IURT secretariat meeting, 4, 10. 1933, RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 41, l81. Here I disagree with Ira Levine's conclusion that American communists were poorly informed about Soviet cultural shifts. See Ira A. Levine, Left-Wing Dramatic Theory is the American Theatre (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1985), 108.
54 Bernard Reines to Hallie Flanagan, 12 December 1932; Hallie Flanagan to Bernard Reines, 6 January 1933; Bernard Reines to Hallie Flanagan, 13 January 1933, Hallie Flanagan Davis archive, Vassar College, 1/6, 2/9.
55 John Howard Lawson, “Play on Dimitroff is feature in new issues of the ‘New Theatre,’” Daily Worker, 28 July 1934. See also Irving Gordon, “The World of the Theatre,” Daily Worker, 26 June 1934.
56 Manfred Ettinger, “Vital articles in October issue of ‘New Theatre,” Daily Worker, 11 October 1934.
57 Herbert Kline, ed., New Theatre and Film, 1934–1937 (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), 1, 354.
58 “Prospects for the American theatre,” New Theatre, September/October 1933, 5–6.
59 William Alexander, Film on the Left: American Documentary Film from 1931–1942 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 159.
60 “Backstage,” New Theatre, February 1935, 30; “New Theatre's second anniversary,” New Theatre, January 1936, 40.
61 Protocol of IURT meeting, 3 May 1934, RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 82, 136–9.
62 Protocols of IURT meetings, 26 & 29 October 1934, RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 80, 71–2.
63 “Plan über der Ausbau der Repertoire-Kommission von MORT zu einem Bühnenvertrieb,” RGASPI, f. 450, op. 1, d. 88, 62.
64 Malcolm Cowley, “1935: the year of congresses,” The Southern Review, 15, no. 2 (April 1979), 273–88. For an organizational overview of the League of American Writers see Franklin Folsom, Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1994); on the literary activities of American communists see Alan M. Wald, Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-twentieth Century Left (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
65 New Theatre, February 1935, 3.
66 Mark Marvin, “Prospects for the New Theatre,” n.d., New Theatre League Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, box 7 (henceforth cited as NTL records).
67 “Minutes from the National Executive Committee, July–August 1935,” NTL records, box 28.
68 “Towards a new theatre,” Censored: A Record of Present Terror and Censorship in the American Theatre (New York: National Committee Against Censorship of the Theatre Arts, 1935), back page.
69 Kline, New Theatre and Film, 9.
70 “Editorial,” New Theatre, November 1935, 3.
71 David Caute, Joseph Losey: Revenge on Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 46.
72 Letter from the New Theatre League to Mark Blitzstein, 5 November 1936, NTL records, box 2.
73 Editorial, New Theatre, May 1935, 3.
74 Paul Romaine, “The little theatres,” New Theatre, May 1935, 13.
75 George Sklar, “Editorial,” New Theatre, July 1935, 3.
76 “Backstage Notes,” New Theatre, June 1935, 26.
77 Ben Blake, The Awakening of the American Theatre, 5, 24.
78 Protocol of the 17 November 1935 IURT meeting, RGASPI, f. 450, op. 1, d. 94, 269–70.
79 Protocol of the 17 November 1935 IURT meeting, RGASPI, f. 450, op. 1, d. 94, 272–3.
80 See the records of IURT discussions, “Protokoll der Sitzung der Leitung mit den verantwortlichen Mitarbeitern am 31. 8. 1935.” RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 95, 35.
81 “Rabochii plan MORT’a na 1936 god, Moskva—noiabr 1935 goda,” RGASPI, f. 540, op. 1, d. 109.
82 On Stanislavsky in America see Sharon M. Carnicke, Stanivslavsky in Focus (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1998), esp. 1–46.
83 Molly Day Thatcher, “Revolutionary staging for revolutionary plays,” New Theatre, July/August 1934, 26; R. Clark, “The theatre collective in production,” New Theatre, June 1935, 22.
84 On the Group Theatre see the memoir of one of its founders, Harold Clurman, The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre and the Thirties (New York: Knopf, 1945); Wendy Smith, Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931–1940 (New York: Knopf, 1990).
85 Arthur Dour, “Broadway and the Group Theatre,” Workers Theatre, 2, no. 6 (September/October, 1932), 5.
86 “The New Theatre School,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 3 (1939), 5.
87 Smith, Real Life Drama, 310.
88 M. A. Chekhov, “Stanislavsky's method of acting, pt. 1,” New Theatre, December 1934, 11–2, 29; pt. 2, New Theatre, February 1935, 6–7; V. Zakhava, “Can we use Stanislavsky's methods,” New Theatre, August 1935, 16–8.
89 Lee Strasberg, “Introductory Note,” Theatre Workshop, 1, no. 1 (1936), 4. See also I. Rapoport, “The work of the actor,” Theatre Workshop, 1, no. 1 (1936), 5–40.
90 Herbert Kline, “Shifting scenes,” New Theatre, January 1936, 33.
91 “Two hundred dollar prize play,” New Theatre, November 1936, 26.
92 “Editorial,” New Theatre, December 1935, 3–4.
93 Repertory Department, New Theatre League, 9 August 1935. NTL Records, box 28.
94 Marvin, NTL records, box .
95 “Against Fascism,” New Theatre, March 1935, 25.
96 George Henry Lewes, “Shakespeare: actor and critic,” Theatre Workshop, 1, no. 1 (1936), 41–50; G. Boyadzhiev, “Revolutionary staging of classics,” Theatre Workshop, 2, no. 1 (1938), 22–9.
97 Mark Marvin, “Shifting scenes,” New Theatre, September 1936, 24.
98 “Editorial,” New Theatre, November 1936, 3–4; Agna Enters, “Spain says ‘salud’!,” New Theatre, September 1936, 8–9, 28; “Backstage,” New Theatre and Film, April 1937, 3.
99 “Backstage,” New Theatre, September 1936, 30.
100 “Shifting scenes,” New Theatre, July 1936, 27.
101 New Theatre School Catalog, 1936; Harold Preston, “The New Theatre School,” New Theatre, February 1936, 32.
102 Mark Marvin, “The New Theatre Conference,” New Theatre, April 1936, 11; Censored: A Record of Present Terror and Censorship in the American Theatre (New York: National Committee Against Censorship in the Arts, 1935).
103 Helen Krich Chinoy, “The poetics of politics: some notes on style and craft in the theatre of the thirties,” Theatre Journal, 35, no. 4 (December, 1983), 478.
104 Toby Cole, Acting: A Handbook of the Stanislavsky Method (New York: Lear, 1947, with subsequent editions in 1955, 1975, 1983, 1995). By the 1955 edition Lee Strasberg had written the introduction.
105 On the New Theatre League claiming credit see Mark Marvin, “The New Theatre Conference,” New Theatre, 1936, 11; on the Labor Theatre's Pins and Needles see Colette Hyman, Staging Strikes: Workers’ Theatre and the American Labor Movement (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997), 92–9.
106 “Editorial,” New Theatre, June 1936, 3.
107 Mark Marvin, “A call for a National Theatre,” New Theatre, July 1936, 7–9, 28–9.
108 Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, 73.
109 See Lynn Mally, “Erwin Piscator and Soviet Cultural Politics,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 51 (2003), 236–53.
110 Kline, New Theatre and Film, 365.
111 Herbert Kline, “The voice of Spain,” New Masses, 23, no. 1 (13 April 1937), 7–8; Herbert Kline, “Killed in action, New Masses, 23, no. 2 (20 April 1937), 19; “Film on Czechoslovakia,” New Masses, 30, no. 12 (14 March 1939), 28–9.
112 “A statement,” New Theatre and Film, March 1937, 3.
113 Albert Maltz, “Marching song,” New Theatre and Film, March 1937, 13, 56; Morris Watson, “Sitdown theatre,” New Theatre and Film, April 1937, 5–6.
114 William Lorenz, “Tsar to Lenin,” New Theatre and Film, April 1937, 47.
115 Ben Irwin to John Garfield, 22 August 1938, NTL records, box 23.
116 On Jerome see Wald, Exiles from a Future Time, 163–78; on Evans see Wald, Exiles from a Future Time, 171.
117 Ben Irwin to Agnes Smedley, 1 November 1937, NTL records, box 12.
118 Richard H. Rovere, “Theater,” New Masses, 27 (21 June 1938), 29.
119 See, for example, Ben Irwin's letter to Kathryn Lewis of the CIO, 13 February 1939, NTL records, box 3.
120 “Swing with the masses!”; Joseph Lawrence, “It's together that counts,” republished from The American Federationist, Skits and Sketches (New York: New Theatre League, 1938), 6, 30–2.
121 “Editorial”, “Unions announcing dramatic groups,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 2 (November 1938), 6, 23.
122 Ben Irwin, “Footlights across America for peace,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 4 (November 1939), 2; “The Yanks are not coming,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 5 (December 1939), 1. On the CPUSA's program during this period see Maurice Isserman, Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 55–82.
123 Sing of the Times, New Theatre pamphlet folder, Tamiment Library, New York University; “Peace kit,” NTL records, box 9.
124 “The New Theatre League,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 11 (June 1940), 13.
125 “Resolution on peace and civil liberties,” New Theatre News, 1, no. 12 (July 1940), 8.
126 Barrett H. Clark to Ben Irwin, 22 October 1940, NTL records, box 3.
127 Frederick Armon Ferrara to the New Theatre League, 15 July 1940, NTL records, box 3.
128 Letter from Alice Evans to John Bonn, 13 March 1940, NTL records, box 3; letter from John Bonn to Ben Irwin, 25 June 1940, NTL records, box 3.
129 Ben Irwin, “Editorial,” New Theatre News, 2, no. 4 (December 1940), 1.
130 Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage: American Drama and Theater of the Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 217. Goldstein based his conclusions on an interview with Toby Cole. The New York Public Library New Theatre Archive includes no documents relating to the end of the League.