Backdrop image for movie Who Killed the Federal Theatre?

Who Killed the Federal Theatre? (2003)

Part journalistic investigation and part performance documentary, "Who Killed The Federal Theater?" tells the story of the Federal Theatre Project within the context of a volatile period in the political, social and cultural history of the United States. The film features interview segments with playwrights, including Arthur Miller, and with actors, directors, designers, and historians. It also incorporates rare archival materials and dramatic sequences, including professionally re-created scenes from Federal Theatre productions that transport viewers back in time to a bygone era in American history and entertainment.

  • History
  • Documentary
  • TV Movie

Top billed cast

  • Photo of Judd HirschJudd HirschNarrator
  • Photo of Tony SimioneTony SimioneActor (The Cradle Will Rock)
  • Photo of Bette CassattBette CassattPinecone (Revolt of the Beavers)
  • Photo of Sarah EctonSarah EctonBeaver (Revolt of the Beavers)
  • Photo of Christi EtcherChristi EtcherBeaver (Revolt of the Beavers)
  • Photo of Gavin PerettiGavin PerettiBeaver (Revolt of the Beavers)

Similar to Who Killed the Federal Theatre?

Backdrop image for movie The New Deal: The Man Who Changed America

The New Deal: The Man Who Changed America (2021)

Elected in November 1932, as the economic crisis ravaged the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt immediately put all his campaign promises into action: it was time for the "New Deal". This bold plan, designed to turn around a nation on the brink of collapse, where unemployment was at an all-time high and the working poor were suffering from the precariousness of the job market, was intended to give hope to a country that had been battered before anything else. Once he came to power, the new president from the Democratic Party immediately passed some fifteen laws designed to revive the economy.

  • Documentary
  • History
  • TV Movie
Backdrop image for movie Discovering Hamlet

Discovering Hamlet (2011)

Journey into "Hamlet"-the play and the man-through the experiences of some of the major actors and directors who have brought Shakespeare's great tragedy to life. Christopher Plummer, David Tennant, John Nettles, John Simm, Sir Trevor Nunn, Franco Zeffirelli, Philip Saville, and others explore the enduring appeal of the Prince of Denmark more than 400 years after his stage debut.

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie Grand Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam (2017)

During the darkest days of the Depression when construction was started on Grand Coulee Dam, everything about it was described in superlatives. It would be the "Biggest Thing on Earth," the salvation of the common man, a dam and irrigation project that would make the desert bloom, a source of cheap power that would boost an entire region of the country. Of the many public works projects of the New Deal, Grand Coulee Dam loomed largest in America's imagination, promising to fulfill President Franklin Roosevelt's vision for a "planned promised land" where hard-working farm families would finally be free from the drought and dislocation caused by the elements.

  • History
  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie Fission

Fission (2025)

The climate crisis, Germany’s nuclear phase-out and Russia’s war against Ukraine are just three of the heavy pieces in the dramatic game about the future of energy. Caught in the middle are two small towns with barely a thousand residents each: Gundremmingen in Bavaria, home to a shuttered nuclear plant, and Choczewo on Poland’s Baltic coast, where the country’s first facility is now under construction. What do the good people on the ground think about it all?

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman (2000)

Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.

  • Drama
  • TV Movie
Backdrop image for movie 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz?

1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz? (2019)

In 1944, two prisoners miraculously escaped from Auschwitz. They told the world of the horror of the Holocaust and raised one of the greatest moral questions of the 20th century.

  • Documentary
  • War
  • History
Backdrop image for movie Merci Zaza - La Folle Histoire de la Cage aux Folles

Merci Zaza - La Folle Histoire de la Cage aux Folles (2023)

A look back at "La Cage aux Folles", which ran non-stop for five years, from February 1973, on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris. At a time when homosexuality was considered a crime by the law, Poiret and Serrault achieved great success in boulevard theater. Their success continued on the silver screen, with three Oscar nominations and a Broadway musical. Combining never-before-seen archives from the play, extracts from the film, confessions by Poiret and Serrault, and interviews with witnesses, this is the story of a wild epic.

  • Documentary
  • History
Backdrop image for movie Soul of a People: Writing America's Story

Soul of a People: Writing America's Story (2009)

In the grip of the Great Depression, unemployed men and women joined an unlikely WPA program to document America in guidebooks and interviews. With the Federal Writers' Project, the government pitted young, untested talents against the problems of everyday Americans. From that experience, some of America's great writers found their own voices, and discovered the Soul of a People. — Spark Media

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie The Living Theatre - a video retrospective

The Living Theatre - a video retrospective (2013)

The Living Theatre is an experimental company founded in New York in 1947 by Julian Beck (New York 1925-1985), painter and poet, and the actress and stage director Judith Malina (Kiel 1926), a student of Erwin Piscator. From the very beginning the group’s activities bore the stamp of social and political commitment, imbued with a strong libertarian matrix. A video montage of films and videos from The Living Theatre Archives.

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie Signals Through the Flames

Signals Through the Flames (1983)

Signals Through the Flames is at once a history and a celebration of the Living Theatre. Founded in the late 1940s by husband-and-wife performers Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre was for many years the predominent American outlet for the avant-garde movement. There were occasional self-imposed exiles to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but the group returned full-force during the Aquarius Age to entertain a new generation of theatregoers.

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie Felipe González, la infancia de un líder

Felipe González, la infancia de un líder (2008)

The documentary Felipe González approaches some of the most important facets and stages of the Andalusian politician's life, before becoming President of the Government of Spain: his early years, his high school studies at the school of the Claretian Fathers in Seville, his years in the Catholic Action University Youth and the Catholic Workers' Youth, his entry into the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).

  • Documentary
Backdrop image for movie The Trials of Oscar Wilde

The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)

England, 1890s. The brutal and embittered Marquis of Queensberry, who believes that his youngest son, Bosie, has an inappropriate relationship with the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, maintains an ongoing feud with the latter in order to ruin his reputation and cause his fall from grace.

  • Drama
  • History