The Trial of
Dr. Beck (1937)
Poster for The Trial of Dr. Beck, 1937 Hughes Allison (Playwright)
9 August, 1937 (24 performances)
The only Federal Theatre Project production to be picked up by Broadway (other plays went the opposite direction). It had a case of twenty Black and fourteen white performers. The play is a courtroom drama, described as “a living tragedy to Negro Americana with sociological implications” (Federal Theatre promotion), “something between frank melodrama and a somber study of some of the problems and prejudices that beset the Negro race” (New York Post). The New York Herald Tribune described it as, “a courtroom melodrama droning out a tale of high-powered passion and murder among Harlem’s upper moneyed classes.” (Source: Source: “The Great White Way: Critics and the First Black Playwrights on Broadway” by Doris E. Abramson)
9 August, 1937 (24 performances)
The only Federal Theatre Project production to be picked up by Broadway (other plays went the opposite direction). It had a case of twenty Black and fourteen white performers. The play is a courtroom drama, described as “a living tragedy to Negro Americana with sociological implications” (Federal Theatre promotion), “something between frank melodrama and a somber study of some of the problems and prejudices that beset the Negro race” (New York Post). The New York Herald Tribune described it as, “a courtroom melodrama droning out a tale of high-powered passion and murder among Harlem’s upper moneyed classes.” (Source: Source: “The Great White Way: Critics and the First Black Playwrights on Broadway” by Doris E. Abramson)
