Arthur Miller and the Federal Theatre Project
In 1936, while still in college, Arthur Miller (1915–2005) penned his first play, No Villian, which won the prestigious Hopwood Prize. The following year, Miller created a rewrite of the play entitled They Too Arise, which earned him a $1,250 prize from New York’s Theatre Guild. Miller submitted the script to the FTP for consideration, and the play readers’ reports were almost wholly negative: “an unbearably dull play” states the play reader report shown here. The FTP gave one performance of the play on October 23, 1937, at a Jewish Community Center in Detroit. In 1938, after graduating from college, Miller joined the FTP as a writer of radio plays and scripts. He stayed with the program until it came to its end, in spite of a more lucrative job offer from Twentieth Century-Fox in Hollywood.
In 1936, while still in college, Arthur Miller (1915–2005) penned his first play, <em>No Villian</em>, which won the prestigious Hopwood Prize. The following year, Miller created a rewrite of the play entitled <em>They Too Arise</em>, which earned him a $1,250 prize from New York’s Theatre Guild. Miller submitted the script to the FTP for consideration, and the play readers’ reports were almost wholly negative: “an unbearably dull play” states the play reader report shown here. The FTP gave one performance of the play on October 23, 1937, at a Jewish Community Center in Detroit. In 1938, after graduating from college, Miller joined the FTP as a writer of radio plays and scripts. He stayed with the program until it came to its end, in spite of a more lucrative job offer from Twentieth Century-Fox in Hollywood.