Editing Orson Welles (section)

== Theatre (1936–38) ==
{{Main|Orson Welles theatre credits}}

=== Federal Theatre Project ===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="160px">
File:Voodoo-Macbeth-Poster.jpg|''[[Voodoo Macbeth|Macbeth]]'' (1936)
File:Horse Eats Hat by Edwin Denby after Eugène Labiche.jpg|''[[Horse Eats Hat]]'' (1936)
File:Faustus-FTP-Poster.jpg|''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Faustus]]'' (1937)
File:The Cradle Will Rock.jpg|''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]'' (1937)
</gallery>
Part of the [[Works Progress Administration]], the [[Federal Theatre Project]] (1935–39) was a [[New Deal]] program to fund theatre and other live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the US during the [[Great Depression]]. It was created as a [[Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935|relief measure]] to employ artists, writers, directors and theatre workers. Under national director [[Hallie Flanagan]] it was shaped into a national theatre that created relevant art, encouraged experimentation and innovation, and made it possible for millions of Americans to see live theatre for the first time.<ref name="Arena">{{cite book |last=Flanagan |first=Hallie |author-link=Hallie Flanagan |date=1965 |title=Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre |location=New York |publisher=Benjamin Blom, reprint edition [1940] |oclc=855945294}}</ref>

[[File:Macbeth-39-Carter-Murderers.jpg|thumb|upright|Macbeth ([[Jack Carter (stage actor)|Jack Carter]], left) with the Murderers in ''[[Voodoo Macbeth|Macbeth]]'' (1936)]]

[[John Houseman]], director of the [[Federal Theatre Project#African-American theatre|Negro Theatre Unit]] in New York, invited Welles to join the Federal Theatre Project in 1935. Far from unemployed—"I was so employed I forgot how to sleep"—Welles put a large share of his $1,500-a-week radio earnings into his stage productions, bypassing administrative red tape and mounting the projects more quickly and professionally. "[[Franklin Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] once said that I was the only operator in history who ever illegally siphoned money ''into'' a Washington project," Welles said.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|11–13}}

The Federal Theatre Project was the ideal environment in which Welles could develop his art. Its purpose was employment, so he was able to hire many artists, craftsmen and technicians, and he filled the stage with performers.<ref name="Bret Wood" />{{Rp|3}} The company for the first production, an adaptation of Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' with an African-American cast, numbered 150.<ref>{{cite news |last=Collins |first=Charles |date=August 30, 1936 |title='Macbeth' as Negro Play Comes to Great Northern Theater |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1936/08/30/page/95/article/macbeth-as-negro-play-comes-to-great-northern-theater |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=February 17, 2015 |archive-date=February 13, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150213065212/http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1936/08/30/page/95/article/macbeth-as-negro-play-comes-to-great-northern-theater/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The production became known as the ''[[Voodoo Macbeth]]'' because Welles changed the setting to a mythical island suggesting the Haitian court of King [[Henri Christophe]],<ref name="A to Z">{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Anthony D. |date=2009 |title=The A to Z of African American Theater|location=Lanham |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-8108-7061-1}}</ref>{{Rp|179–180}} with [[Haitian Vodou|Haitian ''vodou'']] fulfilling the role of Scottish [[witchcraft]].<ref name="Kliman">{{cite book |last=Kliman |first=Bernice W. |date=1992 |title=Macbeth |location=Manchester |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7190-2731-4}}</ref>{{Rp|86}} The play opened April 14, 1936, at the [[Lafayette Theatre (Harlem)|Lafayette Theatre]] in Harlem and was received rapturously. At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy.<ref>{{cite book|last=Callow|first=Simon|title=Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu|publisher=Penguin|year=1995|page=[https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesvolum00simo/page/145 145]|isbn=978-0-670-86722-6|url=https://archive.org/details/orsonwellesvolum00simo/page/145}}</ref> The production then made a 4,000-mile national tour<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|333}}<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=No title |newspaper=Syracuse Herald |page=12 |date=August 27, 1936}}</ref> that included two weeks at the [[Texas Centennial Exposition]] in Dallas.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer; no by-line.--> |title=All-Negro Cast to Produce Macbeth |newspaper=The [[Olney, Texas|Olney]] Enterprise |date=August 14, 1936}}</ref>
[[File:Horse-Eats-Hat-42-Houseman-Welles.jpg|thumb|upright|From left, Houseman, Edwin Denby and Welles at a rehearsal of ''[[Horse Eats Hat]]'' (1936)]]

Next mounted was the farce ''[[Horse Eats Hat]]'', an adaptation by Welles and [[Edwin Denby (poet)|Edwin Denby]] of ''[[The Italian Straw Hat (play)|The Italian Straw Hat]]'', an 1851 five-act [[farce]] by [[Eugène Marin Labiche]] and [[Marc-Michel]].<ref name="Leaming">Leaming, Barbara, ''Orson Welles, A Biography''. New York: [[Viking Press|Viking]], 1985 {{ISBN|0-670-52895-1}}</ref>{{Rp|114}} The play was presented September 26 – December 5, 1936, at [[Maxine Elliott Theatre|Maxine Elliott's Theatre]], New York,<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|334}} and featured [[Joseph Cotten]] in his first starring role.<ref name="Vanity">{{cite book |last=Cotten |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Cotten |date=1987 |title=Vanity Will Get You Somewhere |location=San Francisco |publisher=[[Mercury House (publishers)|Mercury House]] |isbn=978-0-916515-17-1 }}</ref>{{Rp|34}} It was followed by an adaptation of ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Dr. Faustus]]'' that used light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly black stage, presented January 8 – May 9, 1937, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre.<ref name="Welles TIOW">{{cite book |last1=Welles |first1=Orson |author-link1=Orson Welles |last2=Bogdanovich |first2=Peter |author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich |last3=Rosenbaum |first3=Jonathan |author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=This is Orson Welles |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] Publishers |location=New York |date=1992 |isbn=978-0-06-016616-8|title-link=This is Orson Welles }}</ref>{{Rp|335}}

Outside the scope of the Federal Theatre Project,<ref name="France" />{{Rp|100}} American composer [[Aaron Copland]] chose Welles to direct ''[[The Second Hurricane]]'' (1937), an operetta with a libretto by Edwin Denby. Presented at the [[Henry Street Settlement]] Music School in New York for the benefit of high school students, the production opened April 21, 1937, and ran its scheduled three performances.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|337}}
[[File:Cradle Will Rock Rehearsal 370-9.jpg|thumb|left|Choreographer Clarence Yates rehearses a musical sequence with Olive Stanton for the [[The Cradle Will Rock#Federal Theatre Project|Federal Theatre Project production]] of ''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]'' (1937)]]
In 1937, Welles rehearsed [[Marc Blitzstein]]'s political opera, ''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/arts/music/the-cradle-will-rock-returns-with-its-brazen-politics-intact.html|title='The Cradle Will Rock' Returns With Its Brazen Politics Intact|last=Barone|first=Joshua|date=July 9, 2017|work=The New York Times|access-date=October 27, 2017|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=October 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027182209/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/arts/music/the-cradle-will-rock-returns-with-its-brazen-politics-intact.html|url-status=live}}</ref> It was originally scheduled to open June 16, 1937, in its first public preview. Because of cutbacks in the WPA projects, the premiere at the [[Maxine Elliott Theatre]] was canceled. The theater was locked, and guarded, to prevent any government-purchased materials from being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to [[New Century Theatre|the Venice]], 20 blocks away. Some cast, crew and audience, walked on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theatre Project, and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking participation of the union members, ''The Cradle Will Rock'' began with Blitzstein introducing it and playing the piano accompaniment on stage, with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience.

=== Mercury Theatre ===
{{Main|Mercury Theatre}}

[[File:Welles-American-1938.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Aged 22 Welles was Broadway's youngest impresario – producing, directing and starring in an adaptation of ''Julius Caesar'' that broke all performance records for the play (1938).]]
Breaking with the [[Federal Theatre Project]] in 1937, Welles and Houseman founded a repertory company, called the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine ''[[The American Mercury]]''.<ref name="Brady">[[Frank Brady (writer)|Brady, Frank]], ''Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1989 {{ISBN|0-684-18982-8}}</ref>{{Rp|119–120}} Welles was executive producer, and the original company included such actors as [[Joseph Cotten]], [[George Coulouris]], [[Geraldine Fitzgerald]], [[Arlene Francis]], [[Martin Gabel]], [[John Hoyt]], [[Norman Lloyd]], [[Vincent Price]], [[Stefan Schnabel]] and [[Hiram Sherman]].

"I think he was the greatest directorial talent we've ever had in the [American] theater", Lloyd said of Welles in 2014. "When you saw a Welles production, you saw the text had been affected, the staging was remarkable, the sets were unusual, music, sound, lighting, a totality of everything. We had not had such a man in our theater. He was the first and remains the greatest."<ref name="Lloyd 2014">{{cite news |url=http://eatdrinkfilms.com/2014/07/17/orson-welles-world-and-were-just-living-in-it-a-conversation-with-norman-lloyd/ |title=Orson Welles' World, and We're Just Living in It: A Conversation with Norman Lloyd |last=Lattanzio |first=Ryan |date=2014 |website=EatDrinkFilms.com |access-date=August 6, 2015 |archive-date=September 19, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919113159/http://eatdrinkfilms.com/2014/07/17/orson-welles-world-and-were-just-living-in-it-a-conversation-with-norman-lloyd/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Mercury Theatre opened November 11, 1937, with ''[[Caesar (Mercury Theatre)|Caesar]]'', Welles's modern-dress adaptation of Shakespeare's ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]''—streamlined into an [[anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] tour de force that Joseph Cotten later described as "so vigorous, so contemporary that it set Broadway on its ear".<ref name="Vanity" />{{Rp|108}} The set was completely open with no curtain, and the brick stage wall was painted dark red. Scene changes were achieved by lighting alone.<ref name="OW on Shakespeare" />{{Rp|165}} On the stage was a series of risers; squares were cut into one at intervals and lights, designed by [[Jean Rosenthal]], were set beneath it, pointing straight up to evoke the "[[cathedral of light]]" at the [[Nuremberg Rally|Nuremberg Rallies]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shirsat |first=Dipali |date=November 8, 2019 |title=R.A.W: Jean Rosenthal |url=https://womeninlighting.com/extras/entry/r.a.w-jean-rosenthal |access-date=August 15, 2024 |website=Women in Lighting |language=en |archive-date=July 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240721203205/https://womeninlighting.com/extras/entry/r.a.w-jean-rosenthal |url-status=live }}</ref> "He staged it like a political melodrama that happened the night before," said Lloyd.<ref name="Lloyd 2014" />

Beginning January 1, 1938, ''Caesar'' was performed in repertory with ''[[The Shoemaker's Holiday]]''; both productions moved to the larger [[Nederlander Theatre|National Theatre]]. They were followed by ''[[Heartbreak House]]'' (April 29, 1938) and ''[[Danton's Death]]'' (November 5, 1938).<ref name="Bret Wood" />{{Rp|344}} As well as being presented in a pared-down oratorio version at the Mercury Theatre in December 1937, ''The Cradle Will Rock'' was at the [[48th Street Theatre|Windsor Theatre]] January 4 – April 2, 1938.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|340}} Such was the success of the Mercury Theatre that Welles appeared on the cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', in full makeup as Captain Shotover in ''Heartbreak House'', on May 9—three days after his 23rd birthday.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19380509,00.html |title=Orson Welles, May 9, 1938 |magazine=Time |access-date=August 6, 2015 |archive-date=August 31, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150831010028/http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19380509,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref>