Florence of America: A Feminist in the Age of McCarthyism (Regina Collection #12)

Florence Bean James, Jean Freeman (With)

$26.93

Publication Date: August 31st, 2019

Publisher:

University of Regina Press

ISBN:

9780889776470

Pages:

272

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Description

A woman ahead of her time, Florence James revolutionized American theatre before finding safe haven in Canada from a fascistic strain of American politics that continues to exist to this day.

Born on the Idaho frontier, Florence James was a New York City suffragette. The first to put Jimmy Cagney on stage, she founded both the Negro Repertory Theatre and the Seattle Repertory Playhouse. She worked with Francis Farmer, Paul Robson, and Helen Hayes, but her views on art and politics and her choice of plays led to a clash with the Un-American Activities Committee. In the wake of two Kafkaesque trials, where she condemned her persecutors as liars, she fled to Canada and kick-started professional theatre in Saskatchewan, the home to North America's first socialist government.

This new edition of Fists Upon a Star (called "sensational" by Jimmy Cagney) tells an inspiring story of one woman speaking truth to power.

About the Author

Florence Bean James (1892-1988) was an influential and progressive figure in American theatre and the co-founder of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse (now the University of Washington's Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse). She moved to Canada in the 1950s and was instrumental in the founding of the acclaimed Globe Theatre in Regina.