Breen, Robert S.

In the early 1930s, a small group of arts patrons from Philadelphia and New York began to act upon their conviction that Americans should have a national theater organization that would serve the American public better than Broadway, with its high ticket prices and limited touring policy. Under the leadership of Leopold Stokowski, and with the help of several influential supporters, they persuaded Congress to enact a federal charter for a national theater - a rare and significant authorization but for very few organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Red Cross, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Signed by Franklin Roosevelt on July 3, 1935, the charter of The American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA) called for: A people's project, organized and conducted in their interest, free from commercialism, but with the firm intent of being as far as possible self-supporting. A national theatre should bring to the people throughout the country their heritage of the great drama of the past and the best of the present, which has been too frequently unavailable to them under existing conditions. Action on the new charter stalled for nearly a decade, however, with the creation of the WPA Federal Theatre Project, which provided Depression relief to theater artists from 1935 until 1939, and then the onset of World War II. When the war ended, Robert Breen, a dynamic theater director, actor, and producer fresh out of the Army Air Corps, saw in ANTA the opportunity for his vision of a national theater. He persuaded a fellow veteran, Robert Porterfield, founder of the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, to join him in his effort to devise and propose to the ANTA board a plan for a national theater supported by a foundation.

From the description of Robert S. Breen papers, 1935-1973. (George Mason University). WorldCat record id: 326879744

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