The Playbook by James S Shapiro review

This history of the bitter fight over the Federal Theatre Project has disturbing lessons for today’s politics

At the beginning of his history of the Federal Theatre, Shakespeare expert James S Shapiro gives the dictionary definition of playbook: both “a book containing scripts of dramatic plays” and “a set of tactics frequently employed by one engaged in competitive activity”. It is the latter that features more than you might expect in his compelling account.

In the midst of the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration established a national theatre as part of the New Deal. Shapiro, who won the Baillie Gifford prize for 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, dramatises that effort from its modest, tumultuous beginnings to its record audience-pulling successes, its pioneering of integrated casts and the ensuing culture war that led to its disbandment.