Self-study
P1
The Federal Theater Project (FTP) was established in the late 1930s by the United States government. ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ █ ██████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ █ ███████ ███████ ███
Intro to Topic ·
Federal Theater Project
Government funded theater program. Short lived but big.
Main Topic ·
Negro Units, an important legacy of the FTP
Units dedicated to producing African American plays for African American audiences.
Main Point ·
Unit came close to founding a national black theatre
P2
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Background ·
Harlem Renaissance
Premise ·
Debate on what kinds of plays the Negro Units should produce
E.g., folk drama with rural culture; urban and contemporary drama; adapt white playwrights' plays.
Premise ·
The larger debates that reflect a diversity of views
Blend into mainstream culture or be different? Aim for black or white audience? Try to instruct or entertain?
Example ·
The Swing Mikado
P3
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Main Point ·
FTP allowed the Negro Units to create art that reflected the diversity of African American culture
Passage Style
Single position
Spotlight
7.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ ████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ █ █████ ████████ █████ ████████
a
The majority of █████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ███ █████ █████ ████ ████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████████
This doesn’t help the author’s comparison, because it shows that a large proportion of the black theater groups’ plays before the Negro Units had African American authors. We prefer an answer that would suggest these groups before the Negro Units rarely had African American authors.
b
Before the Negro █████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ████████████
The “truly national black theater” doesn’t relate to the government-funded nature of the Negro Units. So learning about funding doesn’t help strengthen the author’s comparison. African American theater groups could have been far-reaching across the United States and focused on primarily African-American subjects/audiences even without government funding.
c
Prior to the █████████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ███████ █████████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████
This supports the author’s comparison by showing that prior theater for African Americans was less national — it wasn’t as far-reaching as the Negro Units. “Exclusively in large eastern cities” is less national than “
d
African American dramatic ████ █████████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ████ █████████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ███████████
This doesn’t strengthen, because we have no evidence the “truly national black theater” relates to the size of audiences for productions. Although the author does mention that the FTP had a huge audience, this doesn’t imply that the individual productions of the Negro Units had large audiences. So we have no evidence that audience numbers as a metric are relevant to the way the author believes the Negro Units were closer to a “truly national black theater.” In any case, we don’t know that the Negro Units received 100 or more people on average to any given production.
e
Theater historians have ███ ██████████ ████████ ██████████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████████ ███████ ███████
This just implies we have difficulty finding a certain kind of source that relates to early African American theater groups. But it doesn’t imply that the early African American theater groups had less national reach or had less African-American focused subjects/audiences than the Negro Units.