hal-05143013 Alfred Kreymborg Federal Troubadour : Singing the Unsung Masses

Despite his recognition as an important editor of modernist poetry and the acknowledgment of the significance of his early poetic plays performed with the Provincetown Players, scholarship about Alfred Kreymborg remains scarce, particularly his involvement with the FTP from 1934-1938. This paper is among the first efforts to recover this period of Kreymborg’s work, offering an initial exploration of the materials available in the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress. The present study discusses Kreymborg’s work both as writer and administrator for the Manhattan-Bronx unit of the FTP and offers the first critical analysis of his anti-capitalist ensemble verse-plays: America, America!: a Mass Recital (1934), Frank and Mr. Frankenstein (1934), and Privilege and Privation (1937). The paper also discusses Kreymborg’s application of his theatrical and political theories in a major production of W.H. Auden’s The Dance of Death (1936), undertaken as head of the Poetic Drama Unit in 1936.