Broadway and the Blacklist

During the era often commonly known as McCarthyism, many motion picture and television creators were blacklisted for supposed communist ties. There remained, however, a creative outlet that still welcomed these artists—theatre.
This book explores the role theatre played during this turbulent period, covering the formation of the Theatre Guild (which birthed the Group Theatre), the short-lived Federal Theatre Project, and the investigations of the motion picture and television industries, and Broadway, by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Appendices discuss McCarthy’s role and present the memos of investigator Dolores Faconti Scotti, along with a list of prominent witnesses in HUAC’s Broadway hearings, and reactions by artists’ unions in the decades following the blacklist.

Activist, actor, archivist, historian and union stage manager K. Kevyne Baar brings a lifetime of professional, personal, and academic experience to this book. She lives in Davis, California.

K. Kevyne Baar
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 217
Bibliographic Info: 80 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7259-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3616-0
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
A Few Words on Spelling and Usage xii
Prologue 1
One. Theatre in America Enters the 20th Century 5
Two. Un-American Theatre: The Short Life and Death of the Federal Theatre Project 17
Three. Finding Subversives in Hollywood 42
Four. Making Work While Blacklisted 58
Five. What Has My Union Done for Me? SAG, AFTRA and Blacklisting 70
Six. Actors’ Equity Association: The Chronicle of an ­Anti-Blacklisting Resolution 83
Seven. Investigating Broadway: The 1955 HUAC Hearings 95
Eight. After the 1955 HUAC Hearings: A Life in the Theatre Goes On 111
Nine. The Name on the Marquee: Working on Broadway in the Shadow of the Blacklist 120
Ten. Investigating Broadway … Again: The 1958 HUAC Hearings 137
Epilogue 153
Appendix A: McCarthyism: Why No Joe? 157
Appendix B: Serving Subpoenas: The Memos of Dolores Faconti Scotti 159
Appendix C: Who’s Who in the Cast of Witnesses in 1955 and 1958 169
Appendix D: An Apology from the Unions 181
Chapter Notes 185
Bibliography 192
Index 197

• A New York Theater Best Theater Book in the Past 10 Years

• “A welcome addition to the library of books about blacklisting…informative…valuable…clearly written”—Penniless Press

• “[A]n eye-opening compact history of the theater community and its members.”—New York Theater