Theatre History Commons^™

Struggling Toward An American National Theatre, Rebecca Ann Soderna

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The United States is conspicuously lacking in a large-scale government subsidy program for the arts and has never established a National Theatre. This makes us unique among most developed nations in the world as well as among many developing countries that established national theatres early in their burgeoning histories, and it begs the question: why has government support of the cultural life of the nation never been a priority in the U.S.? One notable exception to this can be found in considering the work accomplished by the Federal Arts Projects created under the auspices of the Work Progress Administration (WPA) …