SoS # 61 | James Shapiro: The Playbook

Thomas Dabbs again speaks with James Shapiro of Columbia University, this time about his recent book entitled: ‘The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.’
[SEGMENTS]

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:20 - ‘The Playbook’ and Shakespeare in America

00:04:17 - The Federal Theater (1935-39)

00:07:22 - Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theater

00:13:02 - Martin Dies and the conservative playbook

00:18:50 - The American culture war

00:20:05 - Beginnings of the Federal Theater

00:23:50 - A lost and found research archive

00:25:10 - Is Christopher Marlowe a communist?

00:31:35 - Race and Macbeth

00:36:50 - Criticism from the left of the left

00:39:25 - The death of innovation, the playbook redux

00:47:40 - The life of Othello in America