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The Works Progress Administration was the largest New Deal agency. The WPA employed millions of people and affected virtually every locality in the United States, especially rural and western mountain populations. It was created by presidential order and funded by Congress’ Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The goal of the WPA was to employ the unemployed on relief until the economy recovered. The Federal Theater Project was part of the WPA and put unemployed performers, writers and producers to work. In 1936 John Houseman was hired as part of the Federal Theater Project to produce a project for Harlem’s American Negro Theater. Houseman in turn hired Orson Welles to direct. Welles decided to give his cast an opportunity to perform the classics and chose to stage Macbeth. He set the production in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe during the slave revolt that brought independence to Haiti.
Welles’ production of Macbeth was hailed as a landmark production of the play.
The Outrageous Adventures of Orson Welles and the Raw Deal imagines Orson Welles attempting his staging of Macbeth in Harlem in 2009. What would a Federal Theater Project under an Obama Administration look like? What would be compromised? What would remain the same? How does the political consciousness of an art prodigy at the height of his intellectual power change? All these questions and more are explored in comic book form!
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Mary Button
The Outrageous Adventures of Orson Wells and the Raw Deal
2008
3 8.5 x11 panels, mixed media
Dreaming America
A show dedicated to civic daydreaming in a time of possibility.