A New Deal for the Performing Arts: 1,121 new or improved bandshells and outdoor theatres

Above: The Castle Amphitheater in Provo, Utah, built by WPA workers, 1936-1937. Photo by Richard Walker, Creative Commons, 2019.

During the New Deal, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) constructed 56 new "open-air theatres and amphitheatres" (and improved 26 others). Young Americans in the National Youth Administration built--or created additions to--276 "bandstands, bandshells, and outdoor theaters" (and repaired or improved 291 others). Meanwhile, WPA workers built 366 new bandshells and outdoor theatres (and reconstructed or improved 106 more). (Statistics from the final reports of each agency.)

These 1,121 projects only tell part of the story, however, because other New Deal agencies created such facilities too, for example, the Civilian Conservation Corps and, most probably, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (unfortunately, New Deal statistics are not always well-documented or easily-accessible).

Considering all these New Deal facilities for the performing arts; and the thousands of performances given by the WPA's Federal Theatre Project, Federal Dance Project, and Federal Music Project; and also the many work-relief jobs offered to stage designers, lighting technicians, directors, actors, musicians, circus performers, etc., the New Deal was truly a revolutionary era in the history of the performing arts. It was a creative era that was of, by, and for the people - much more participatory than our modern art and entertainment culture.

Above: The outdoor theatre at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, created with the assistance of WPA and CCC workers. This photo is from a 1939 program for the The Lost Colony play (which can still be seen at Fort Raleigh today), courtesy of the National Archives.