TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW with KATE DRAIN LAWSON by Mae Mallory Krulak for the RESEARCH CENTER TOR THE FEDERAL THEATRE PROJECT George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia 22030 January 3, 1976 Hollywood, California

Transcribed by Rhoda Durkan November, 1977 MK: I’m interviewing Kait Drain Lawson, former Federal Theatre employee at her home in Hollywood, California on Kennilworth Street. . . KL: It's amazing! That's beautiful. (Looking at production notebooks)

MK: Isn't that beautiful work? KL: Yes. Somebody spent money and I have a feeling it must have been the work of the WPA people. Maybe not.

MK: (Reads) Supplementary data about Chekhov and intonation about the play. KL: I wonder mho actually -- I was looking to see if there was a name -- MK: Some credit to a certain person. KL: Well, and to a branch or something or other because, you know, they're beautifully done and they're definitely put together as archives or records or whatever you call them.

MK: I'll check into that and let you know About it, Mrs. Lamson. KL: I'd love to know because it might be worth my just -- if they can be bought -- buying a set or finding out how I could . . . I was looking to see if those were actors or people but they're actors. MK: They're actors in the production, aren't they? KL: Yes. (Pause) /I) was head of the Bureau of Research and Publications,

and then got turned over to the general thing and was the chief technical officer of the whole setup.

MK: For New York City or . . KL: For New York City and I think probably actually it was New York City rather than New York State. That's what I figured but I wasn't sure. KL: Well, I was so busy being whatever I was -- this is a regional research supervisor, Cyrilla Lindner, who put this together for -- MK: The Los Angeles Regional Service Bureau. And then there was the whole

National Service Bureau which was back in New York City, I think. And they were doing it for New' York productions.

KL: I must find cut -- I think I should probably write a note to Rosamond Gilder. MK: I will also check with some other people and give you an answer on it, too. KL: Oh, good. I'll be grateful if you will because, as you can see, I really rather collect books and papers and things.

MK: You have a wonderful collection. (Laugh) KL: I have worse than that. I closed the bedroom door because all the walls of the bedroom are covered with file boxes like this sort of thing, and it's not just the Federal Theatre.

MK: Is it your records of all the different things you've been involved in? KL: Yes, since 1920, and that's kind of a long time ago. MK: Well, how about this: for our interview, start out and tell me haw the Federal Theatre Project fit in with your career. Tell me about before and during and after.

KL: Oh, well now, let's see if that can be done. That's a beautiful book. I'm so envious of whoever has them. MK: Well, they're all at George Mason University, the university that I'm connected with. KL: Really? Now, was there a man who was the head of the Federal Theatre down there? MK:No, what happened is that. . . I’ll stop the tape. . . (tape recorder turned off) KL: . . . to see if I can find. . . I have a big folder of Federal Theatre things, but I think I loaned it to Houseman, John Houseman, who is an old buddy of mine. And I know he's writing the second volume of his book.

MK: Oh, a follow-up to Run Through? KL: Yeah. MK: Great! KL: And that will get into the Federal Theatre because years ago, before he wrote Run Through, he borrowed all the papers that I had that applied to things that he remembered that he wanted. It wasn't Federal Theatre particularly though. It was before that because I met him first in the twenties.

MK: What were you all up to then that you and he ran into each other? Were you both in New York? KL: Yes, we were both in New York. Practically all my early experience is New York. And I was Technical Director or Art Director of the Theatre Guild for five straight years in the early years from about 1925 or 1926 to 1931. Then after 1931 I came out here every so often but .my liveliest life was all in New York until -- I call it a dif- ferent career when I suddenly got to acting in pictures and also

when I began doing costumes for Bob Hope which was the last thing that I was doing energetically, and I finally just decided I'd done it long enough -- 23 years with Hope's shows.

MK: The costumes for his television shows? KL: Yes, just for his television shows. And I think his first overseas trip, which was 1951 or 1952 or somewhere along in there, I went with him. There was no other wardrobe person at that time that

they could get that they wanted. And I belonged to everybody's union, so that's all right. I was carrying seven cards, I think it was, at that time. It was expensive but I so disliked having people say, "You can't do this; you don't belong to the right gang." MK: So you'd get out your checkbook and join that one? KL: Yeah, and you have to prove that you have a right to it. But the

Costume Designers' Guild and the Scenic Artists' Guild and well, all of them, all along the line. I'm gradually withdrawing. Now I'm to the place where I have a life membership in Equity and I've given up Screen Actors' Guild just recently. I kept it thinking -- because I did a little bit of acting at one time in pictures. MK: When was your last time in pictures? I’ve read you were in How to Marry a Millionaire. Would that have been? --

KL: That's quite an early one, a very early one. I think that was when

Kenneth McGowan was over at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) at that time. MK: So over 20 years ago? KL: Oh, sure, because when you figure that professionally the first thing I did was in New York theatre and it was 1921. That's when my official career started. MK: And how did that happen? Were you stagestruck and -- KL: I'm the only member of my family that ever went near the inside of a

theatre from the back door. Let's see, I went to war in 1917 to France and Italy and married John Howard Lawson, the playwright. Did you find him up in San Francisco? MK: Yes. Would you like me to tell you about -- KL: Tell me what -- because I don't see him. MK: This is what happened: we called him up and he was very, very sick and he couldn't get out of bed. And he had to have a microphone plugged into the earpiece of the telephone to even be able to hear. And he sounded rather weak and he said he just didn't want to get

our hopes up, that the doctor said it would be too hard on his health to talk to us right now. And that if we could come back in the spring -- and we might come back because we keep learning of more people we would like to talk to.

KL: Well, he's a very interesting person. He didn't care much for me. MK: How long were you married? KL: I was married -- I was divorced in 1924 and I was married in -- what was the last year of the war (World War I)? MK: 1918. KL: 1918. MK: So six years, about. KL: And he %us restless and he didn't like being married after he got home -- the world is full of people from the First (World) War who wanted to marry the minute they got out of the Army and then didn't like it, once they'd done it. He was quite definite about it and wanted to be .free. He said I stultified his creative urge, which is a pretty fancy line. (Laugh)

MK: It sure is! (Laugh) You should have said, "How strong is that creative urge?" KL: Oh, it was very strong with him. I think it still is. His book on playwriting is a -- MK: We have it right in our hotel room. KL: You do? Well, I have a copy in the next roam there. But he just one

day came in and said, "I don't like being married and I'm leaving." So I said, "Well, I don't want to be a deserted wife and mother." And he said, "Well, I want a divorce. I want to be free."

And I had such. confidence in him at that time, such faith in him, that I thought, "Well, if I'm blocking anything, I better get out quickly because it's too good a man to miss, to lose in the shuffle." MK: And at that point he had already written Processional, hadn't he? KL: Oh, yes, and I worked on Processional and Roger Bloomer. I didn't work on Nirvana. That's sort of one that nobody ever hears about

so much anymore. But that whole group of young writers were my buddies and I rocketed all around Paris in the early days with them during the war. MK: Because you met him in Paris, didn't you? KL: Yeah, MK: What were you all doing there? He was a soldier? KL: NO, he wasn't a soldier. It was the -- very interesting; somebody should write a book about them, the Norton Hargis Ambulance Corps.

Norton Hargis or Norton, I think, was a wealthy man and he got a whole lot of young college men who were still in college really together to go over as an ambulance corps shortly before I went, which was in the summer of 1917. MK: Did you go with the Red Cross? KL: No, I went as a volunteer nurse's aide. My French teacher in Washington, who probably is dead now, was a wonderful French woman and she went every summer and organized children's hospitals. Her name was Blanche B. Bemont and she was the head French teacher at Western High School. MK: Oh, you went to Western? KL: I went to Western. I even graduated from Western.

Well, of course, I started in Spokane, Washington, that's where I was born. MK.: Were you born in Spokane? KL: I was born in Spokane and we moved to Olympia because my dad was the

Adjutant General of the state and some things like that. And then we moved from there to Washington in 1900. MK: So you were very young. KL: Oh, I was not so young. I was 15 or something. You see, I'm past 81 now. MK: Oh, I didn't realize that, Mrs. Lawson. KL; Oh, yes, I'm an old wreck. I was born in 1894. It's wonderful really.

I overlap so many generations. But anyhow, I went to Western High School and I had graduated from Western I guess probably in 1916, as near as I can remember. I could look it up. Almost all these dates

I can confirm if it's necessary at all. In 1917 I went to France with Madame Bemont and went to work -- I had been in Washington -- there was something at that time called The American Women's Volunteer something or other. It was rather social but I was never properly social; the rest of my family was, you know, the Junior League and all sorts of fanciful things like that. And they were the Drains? KL: They were the Drains which is an unusual name but it was always quite a wonderful family. And my father incidentally, who was a man who

lost his right hand in a hunting accident, went with the First Division as Chief Ordinance Officer. That all came out of being the Adjutant General in the state of Washington. And he knew all the top officers when they all went off at the beginning of things. He went in April

of 1917 and I went in July of 1917 on the grounds that I had a broken heart at the moment and I should be allowed to do something noble. So I went bravely off to war. The family paid my expenses, such as they were, and I had a dress allowance which was $50 a month. And I lived on that in Paris for quite a long time.

MK: And then did you get into the crowd that John Howard was in, just by chance? KL: You mean John Howard Lawson? MK: Yes. KL: Yes, in Paris I met them. And Dos was a great friend of mine, John Dos Passos, a very dear friend of mine. And his book's very interesting. MK: I loved Manhattan Transfer. I read that not too long ago. KL: I thought the early ones were wonderful. But the first one was called

Three Soldiers and it was published in England. think one of his last books. It was called Good Times or Best Times or something -- and that's pretty accurate history of him and so forth all through.

But I very soon, in Paris -- when I got to Paris my lady that I was supposedly going with had gone off to organize children's hospitals. And then she went back to America in the fall of 1917 because that's where she raised her money while she was teaching at Western. I went out to what was called the American Ambulance Hospital No. 1 in the suburbs of Paris and met a very beautiful and elegant lady. I was looking for one American boy who had gone over earlier and I went out to this hospital to see if I could find him or find out where he was because I had messages from his father. And I walked into a room, a long, long room like that, and a very handsome lady sitting at the end in a blue uniform and a little white hat said, "You've come to work here?"

And I said, "No, not necessarily, but I just found that what I was going to do is not available at the present, and I'll come if you want." And I went right to work the next morning in the hospital as an active nurse's aide not just a volunteer wrap-a-bandage lady. That was when I met all the young ambulance drivers.

MK: Was Faulkner over there then? KL: Who? NE: William Faulkner.

KL: He WS somewhere. I didn't know him then but there was Robert Hillyer, the poet, Dudley Poore, who was another poet, and Lawson who was a writer --he was one of the most active ones -- Dos, who was a fantastic fellow. They all were together in an ambulance corps in France at the beginning of the thing. And I had a little apartment in Paris, a little

sort of a room and a cubby corner, and for some reason I was allowed in the gang. I was the only lady around at all in those days. MK: Wasn't that fun? KL; Oh, it was wonderful because I have always been a rather. . .I was going to say belligerent but I don't mean that, but a rather violent kind of a person.

I worked first at the hospital. Then my father came to Paris to organize, with a British officer and a French officer, the Tank Corps. They were the heads of that. And I left the hospital and came in town and set up an apartment for him in Paris.

Then a little bit later on, I went to work for the Signal Corps, the Air Force of that time. And from there some of the Red Cross boys,

or the ambulance boys, had gone to Italy by that time. So they arranged to get me to Italy to be with them there. So then I was there until I came back after the war. MK: And by that time you and John Howard Lawson were thinking of getting married? KL: I net him in Home. Be was the head of a little magazine that they

were doing. We were very much in love and I was rather naive. I hadn't gotten around to falling in love with anybody particularly except a rather aged officer who'd been in the Philippines. And that was pure romance. I mean, not even hold hands. But anyway, we fell very much in love and came back to this country. He came before I did; he got out before I did. And after we got back here we got officially married in Pleasantville, of all strange places, MK: That's in New York, isn't it? KL: Yes, that's in New York, not very far from New York City.

The net result of those four or six years is I have one fantastic son, which was a good idea. MK: And is he in California now? KL: Yes, he's here. MK: Is he right in Los Angeles? KL: Yes, he lives up on the top of a hill off Mulholland Drive here with

a Belgian wife that he collected in the Second (World) War. He enlisted and spent four years in the Army -- I think he got to be a top sergeant or something. Because Lawson is or was -- I guess he still is -- but was very much a radical at the time. I think Alan, which is the son, didn't want to be an officer. He's turned up his nose at officering. He wouldn't go to Officers' School. There was quite a discussion, not with me. That's the Second War. And by that time. I was in India, you see, being a Red Cross girl again.

MK: During World War you were in India? KL: Yes. MK: So you went and did some service for both wars then?

KL: Oh, yes, very definitely so. I was a little more than two years in

the first one and it was nearly four years the second time. I thought I'd make a very good Marine Corps officer or something or other. MK: You would have, I'm sure. KL: Well, I had all my father's background material of being properly

military, if that's what you'd call it. And I got myself together -- I was a little old but then I didn't believe in age anyhow. I went down to the Marine Corps enlistment office here in town. And I put on the only suit have because I don't like suits and I was not quite as heavy as I am now. But anyway, I went down to the Marine Corps enlistment office and marched myself in there. And a very tired sergeant looked up at me and said, "What do you want?" And I said, "Well, I thought I should enlist and go to Officers' Training School and be an officer." This was the Second War. Well, he just took a leaping jump that way, and he looked up at me

and he said, "You're too old and too fat, and you oughta know it." And I said, "Oh, I'm very sorry. I apologize."

And he said, "Well, I don't mean to be rude but you are." And as a matter of fact, when I sailed a little bit later to go to India, I had my fiftieth birthday on the ship. And of course, at that time you had to be between 25 and 35 to be allowed. You were too old. MK: So it really wasn't a personal remark that he was making? KL: Oh, no, I didn't feel it was particularly. I just felt that he was

pretty desperate in what he was getting in the way of women perhaps, So I wTote to my father who was alive then and lived in Whshington, D.C. He knew the head of the Red Cross there. Well, he knew Mabel Boardman, that's her name, who was the head of it at that time. He talked to several people. I'm taking too much time? MK: You're not but -- (tape recorder off) KL: . . . was one of those on some material on Cleon Throckmorton who was -- MK: I don't know of him.

KL: He was a very interesting man; he's dead now. He was in the Federal

Theatre in New York and he was the head of a scenic studio down on Third Street or something or other. You see, that's another whole career, that's a different one. I went too far back for you.

MK: You didn’t go too far back for me. What I’d love to hear about is how you and Mr. Lawson got into the theatre in New York and then how you got into the Federal Theatre too. But first, had he written his plays in 1918, when he came home did he go out and try to sell Processional, get it produced or had he not even written it in 1918?

KL: Oh, he'd written it long before that. He wrote his play before he was of age. He was 18 or something or other. Well, let's see, we got back here. MK: Did you go to New York after you were married in Pleasantville? KL: Oh, yes. I just went up for the day and he wasn't around at the

time at all. It was all done very quietly because he didn't want his father to know me at all. I got to know him later; he was a very nice little man, quite a fantastic fellow actually. He had the first American newspaper in Mexico, an early Reuters man and Reuters were very important at that time

MK: They still are. But did Mr. Lawson grow up in Mexico as a young boy then?

KL: No, he grew up in New York City, and he went to Dartmouth. I knew

somewhere along the line there was one. I'm the uneducated member of the family but over the years I've learned several things. I'm willing to admit that. MK: What was your first job in theatre? KL: My first job in theatre professionally was being an assistant to

an art director or a designer of scenery, a man called Woodman Thompson. And that was because I was married to Lawson by that time and his play, the Processional play – Augustin Duncan, the brother of Isadora Duncan, was one of Equity's directors at the time. And we were living -- we lived in the summertime up near Haverstraw, up in that area of New York State. And we were all driving in an automobile one night and the car went off the road -- the girl who perhaps didn't see as well as she should probably -- and threw us all out into a field and broke Jack's leg very badly. I call Lawson Jack very often because he was Jack in those days. He wasn't John Howard so seriously.

He spent that summer in the hospital with a very badly broken upper

leg or something or other. And I kept house and took care of the baby which had arrived a short time before. Let's see, where did Lawson go from there? MK: When was your son born? In about 1920? KL: No, 1919. He was born in the right number of months and years, but I wasn't married in the right number of years. MK: That happens. KL: Well, I think it does. It seemed perfectly logical. In other words, I knew Lawson ahead of time somewhat. MK: Well, that's been going on for always. KL: I'm a great believer in it. I don't know that I would be for my

granddaughter but it seemed the only right thing to do at the time. And Alan who is my son and who is Lawson's son, too, incidentally --

he has two other children that after he had given me up, he got married again. MK: Is Mr. Lawson married just to his second wife right now? KL: Yes. And her name was Sue Edmonds, and she was sitting on the door sill

of the little apartment we had in New York quite a lot before he threw me out, so to speak. She sat on his doorstep for quite a while and then finally they officially got married, which was a good idea for them, I'm sure. It broke my heart, incidentally. I've never gotten over --

I'm still in love with the man, which is kind of ridiculous but charming. It's a very nice clean way of living, to know that you're -- you know, that's all there is to it. MK: And so you do have warm thoughts of him and warm feelings towards him? KL: Oh, very, and I made a great point when Alan was small that they know each other and be friends and that still is true. MK: Did you live near enough that Alan could visit his father a lot, that type of thing? KL: Well, quite a bit, yes because I had in New York -- you see, Jack was

back in New York doing Processional and a lot of other wonderful things. And I lived down in Greenwich Village at that time and I put Alan in a school out in --what's it called -- in New Jersey, Somerset Hills. There was a very good school out there and somebody that I knew pulled some strings to get me -- for them to take him. Because, you know, I was working kind of busily. I used to put Alan to sleep in the bottom of the stage box . .

. . . and go onto the stage and do all the things I was doing. It didn't hurt the child at all, but it used to shock all my friends. MK: How did you get involved with the Federal Theatre Project? KL: Actually, the thing that was before the Federal Theatre was called the Works Project -- MK: Works Progress Administration? KL: Yes. It got to be the Federal Theatre that way. No, it was CW something or other, City Works Project I guess it was, which was before the Federal Theatre. In other words, it was a local sort of a thing. And I worked for them for quite a while and it seems to me that the Bureau of Research and Publication was under the city thing first. And then when Hallie Flanagan was so clever about everything,

it turned over without my being conscious of it particularly. Because I knew Pierre (de Bohan) quite well. We had offices on the same floor of this thing and, of course, it was all run sort of casually by people who knew what they were doing. And at that time -- no, I think it was

Rosamond Gilder. Do you know her name at all? Well, Roz was the person who moved me or asked me to go into the main Federal Theatre, into the technical job. I wrote her back a year or two ago and said,

"How did you happen to recommend me for a job?" and I got a little note back which was purely complimentary saying, you know, "Who could I get better?" or something like that. She's a wonderful woman and She's, of course, pure literary theatre. Her father was a very great man. But anyway -- MK: How did you get interested in the technical aspects of theatre work?

KL: Well, the first theatre work I did, which was while I was in high school. We had a drama department at Western Costume Company and we had a wonderful woman who was the head of a dance department, too, out in New York. That's somebody else that somebody should write about and her name is Alys Bentley. She was a pioneer dance teacher or director and so forth and so on and she taught at Western, not full time or anything, but she came and lectured. And we all made ourselves little cheesecloth dresses and ran around. That was one of the things that was very funny actually. We all had these little costumes and before I went to war I was in the group. When I came back, I went back into the group and the difference was fantastic because, at the first part of the thing, I had a costume which I made myself which was Cheesecloth,

good, heavy, solid cheesecloth, and had what they called "angel" sleeves with bows-, bows, bows and bits of hanging goods and so forth. And we wore petticoats and sneakers and corset covers and things like that. I came back and all the underpinnings had gone. MK: They had on the cheesecloth though? (Laugh) KL: Some of it was cheesecloth, yes, but it was -- it all started in the second episode from -- what do you call them? Undershirts, I guess,

sort of fairly long-tailed undershirts that were made of Italian silk, mesh, net stuff. And you put that on and put a safety pin between your legs to make it into pants and then you could have chiffon by that time over it and so forth. But it was one of the

early freedoms. It was quite a fantastic sort of a time. But actually in those days I was doing everything that had -- for no good reason, I

was doing the classic dancing, as it was called. And I was in the French play and I was in the German play and I sang in the chorus, MK: That was all at Western?

KL: That was all at Western. And then I taught Sunday School and trained

a group of naughty little children in the Episcopal Church to do a Christmas play which I wrote. And this was all just ordinary young people doing things. The dancing thing -- at that time I was a dancer in my own private theory. When I went to France and worked in a hospital, I was dancing every time I got a chance. I lived with a

French family and there was a beautiful old sculptor around who decided I was a wonderful dancer. I wasn't so wonderful but I was very serious about it. And while I was living in Paris and working for the Air Force, which was the Signal Corps really in those days,

they had a big pageant dawn in Tours. And it was a week of festivities to raise some money for the hospital. And I got invited, by some happy chance, to go down and dance at the festival. I've got pictures of it even and it's pretty funny actually. But we did a whole classic thing that had one of the singers from the Comedie Francaise singing a piece of This in a gypsy costume. And there was I being very classical in my long straight robes and the daughter of the mayor, who also sang. It was really a very comical performance but very interesting to be

mixed up in. That was not professional either, of course. I was just a Red Cross girl sort of a thing. MK: Your whole professional career was after you married Mr. Lawson? KL: Yes.

DE: We're back in New York. He was in theatre and so you got involved in the theatre. KL: Right. IX: And you were with the group? KL: With what group? MK: Well, you had said "the group" and I thought that meant the Group Theatre. KL: No, it didn't. I never worked for the Group Theatre. I think they scorned me rather. I think they thought I was not radical enough for them though. I've been attacked a few times by the Government

since as being radical. But no, the group that I meant was the ambulance drivers and that was all in France, except that they were all friends when we all came back to America. MK: What kinds of things did you do as the head of the Bureau of Research and Publications? KL: Well, occasionally I designed the scenery. Always I supervised it and

checked it over and saw that there were proper plans and so forth made. And all of the painters and builders and so forth were under my department. In other words, it was actually -- it was the Technical Officer of the Federal Theatre. And it was all of the productions. We did three or four It Can't Happen Here's at the same time in New York.

I think this was Hallie Flanagan's idea to see how many places it could be done at the same moment. MK: Did you see any merit in doing that, trying to do one production in different places at the same time? KL: Yes, because it came out quite different. There was a Negro company

doing it all with black-face that they had from God, and there was the vaudeville unit which was headed up by a man called Frank Merlin and that did a It Can't Happen Here. And Eddie Goodman, who was the head of the more or less elegant people in the middle of New York, did a production of it with a designer called Tom Cracraft mho did the scenery for it. And at the last minute, though I don't think it Should be remembered, I had to do it all over because it -- nobody

liked it or it didn't work too well or something. But I was the strong man of the group. I could tell Orson Welles in that group -- that was a very fine group that was Houseman and Welles. I've for- gotten what they called it.

MK: They called themselves the 891. KL: 891? MK: Did they give themselves another name? KL: I don't know. I don't remember that offhand but they had the -- I think at the Princess Theatre that they had and they did a lot -- they did Horse Eats Hat, which was wonderful, and even Orson played Faustus, the Marlowe play. There were so many units.

MK: But you were in charge of all the New York City units? KL: Everything in New York City, all of the technical things. And that meant I had a lot of different kinds of people to be responsible for in a way. And I also had to sign all the papers asking for things. What do you call them? Not vouchers.

MK: Requisitions? KL: Requisitions, that's it. I found a book the other day when I was looking for something else with numbers in a column and what they were for, the requisitions. MK: Did you work a lot with Philip Barber?

KL: Philip Barber? Oh, yes. MK: We met him and I talked to him About two months ago. KL: Oh, really? I liked him very much. He was above me because he was the head of the whole New York branch at that time. And I was only the Chief Technical Officer, but I had that title from the Government. Somewhere in the thing there was a wonderful man called Brinkerhoff. I don't know his name. KL: Well, he was a money man and had a strong finger trying to keep from

spending too much because things were kind of casual. Sometimes there was no money and sometimes, you know, there was lots of money. And of course, the Living Newspaper was another one of our things and that was a good one. But they did everything you can think of.

We had a whole -- we had, I think, two or three Negro units. We had one that was headed by a gentleman called Momodu Johnson and he was an African. MK: And he headed a Negro unit? KL: Yes. It was a Negro dance unit, however. It was not an acting unit; it was a dance -- there were lots of interesting dances. MK: Did you know Tamiris very well? KL: Not house-well, but work-well, yes. Have you found her along the way? MK: I don't think she's still alive that I know of. I haven't been able to track her down as being alive, but I don't know for sure yet.

KL: Well, you could probably easily find out if you called the secretary -- call Capezio in New York, the shoe man. And they have a Dance Alliance there, a business dance alliance. It's quite wonderful because all the people who make Shoes and things like that and they belong to a guild

of their own. It's administered by the little man who's the head of Capezio, Ben Somers. Ben's still alive. MK: Would he have ever had a connection with the Federal Theatre that you know of, that you recall? KL: He might have come in while it was still in effect but I think probably

it was old Mr. Capezio himself in those days. But Ben set up this guild or whatever you want to call it of the dance people, the dance business people. I think it WS called The Dance Business People.

They had a fund so that they could give people little grants of money to do things. Because I had known him from when I was at the Theatre Guild. They gave me a grant every year. I did seven years of children's theatre out here. MK: On the West Coast? KL: On the West Coast. That was not Federal Theatre. That was after Federal Theatre. MK: Was that in the forties? In the 1940's? KL: No, it was in the fifties. Actually I started with -- my first

television was in 1951 out here. And he must have came along about in that time. They gave me an award every year of $100 to do things for the children's theatre. MK: Well, that went a little way, didn't it? KL: Yeah, that helped. The bow on the end, however, is from the American Theatre Association Children's Theatre. MK: That's a lovely bow. KL: Yeah, it's a beauty. The little one is later still. MK: Do you know a woman who is now working with the Los Angeles Children's Theatre? She's the wife of Buddy Ebsen, the actor. KL: Oh, yes. (Interruption - silence 1 minute) And I've always been good with buttons to press. MK: That's what I assumed that, because you had your good technical training, that this would be a breeze for you. (Laugh) KL: I can talk all day into it but somebody brought me one and left

it with me and said, "Here are two cartridges or whatever they call them." MK: Cassettes. KL: Cassettes, two cassettes, and use them up and if you need more, buy more. But I never got the first one started. MK: Well, how is your book coming? What will it be about?

KL: It will be mostly about me because it started with a very brief bit

of early history and then jumped into the twenties in New York, you see, which is a time that everybody wants to talk about now. MK: Now we want you to tell us about the thirties. KL: Yes, that's right, because Federal Theatre doesn't come in until 1937? MK: 1935 to 1939. And were you still with the Federal Theatre when it closed in 1939? KL: No, I left very shortly before it and came out here on something or other. MK: Did you have an offer to come work with a group out here or with the movies? KL: NO, I never worked with a group. But actually I think I came out here

in a bad temper. Is that about the vintage of the big movie, Gone With the Mind? MK: Yes. KL: Because I knew Sidney Howard quite well in the theatre in New York and he was working on Gone With the Wind in the early stages. MK: Doing the screen play for it? KL: Yes. And he asked me if I'd come out and do all the little props and

things, do all the planning of that sort of thing because I had done Silver Cord in New York and even gotten credit for it at the Theatre Guild which is unusual. I used to do one show a year and boss all the other ones technically. And I always did the one in the late spring that they had to do with what was left over of the money and things, you know. Go to the storehouse and find some scenery, which was all right, too. They had a lot of scenery. But I came out -- as nearly as I can tell, I disapproved -- when it

got down to the place where the Workers' Alliance in the Federal Theatre -- you must have heard of them. MK: I've heard of the Workers' Alliance. KL: Well, they gradually began to take over, particularly in the technical

end of the Federal Theatre, and they were many of them rather evil people as far as -- they wanted it for themselves, not the theatre

but the money. And they were quite mercenary about it. Hallie Flanagan -- I think she was in a jam probably because she was very

good to them and let them -- I let them talk all they wanted to. They used to come about once every two weeks. A group of them would arrive with an appointment and come in and I let them sit down. But

the first time I made them stand up in a row and talk to me. You see, I was being the boss. And they wanted to run everything. They wanted to say who could be an actor and who could be a technical and things like that which most of them didn't have any right to. It was quite a difficult situation. MK: And so you didn't let them get away with very much but Hallie Flanagan did? KL: It seemed so tome, and it got worse and worse. And there was a big man called Bill Farnsworth,

MK: What is he like? KL: He was very nice. MK: Was he a more forceful administrator than Hallie Flanagan? KL: No. As far as I was concerned he was less so, but he was, you know,

sort of nice to people. Phil Barber could tell you things about some of those latter days. I'd like to find out what he would remember about it all. MK: Well, he talked to us for a while and I'll send you what he told us about the Federal Theatre. KL: I will pay gladly for duplication of any of this material that you can conveniently get and I promise not to -- MK: But be patient because we are running around talking right now. It'll take some time to have the money to transcribe and get everything

down from tape onto paper. But the day will come and we'll send it to you. KL: Well, should you have a donation or something for it? MK: Well, I don't -- (Interruption) KL: He came much later, I think, than I did. Maybe he was up in the

country or something before -- I don't remember exactly. But it got

to a place where it was getting to be a nasty MSS and the Workers' Alliance people -- MK: Would you say they were one of the great detrimental forces that were eating away at the strength of the Project? KL: Right, yes. I think they probably had more to do with the end of

it, I mean, with finally the Government saying, you know, "Throw them out. They're a bunch of Communists," which they were, And I don't think that necessarily is a thing that you shouldn't be but it's not a thing to be with the Government. You know, the Government doesn't understand that a Communist may be a noble soul. MK: They just see the destructive side ct being a Communist. KL: But as a matter of fact, they had a great deal to do with the finish

of the Federal Theatre. It could have gone on forever if there hadn't been this very vicious kind of thing that developed. MK: And do you think that Hallie Flanagan was naive and didn't realize it

and let them gain strength that they wouldn't necessarily have had the chance to get strong? KL: Well, I think she was sympathetic to them for one thing, which is all

right; if you're the head of a big thing you have to be sympathetic. But I think she lost control of it, you know. She really -- they got

stronger than she was, at least as far as I could tell. And when that got to that point -- for instance, they would insist that people who had been let go for one reason or another, perfectly legitimately,

be rehired or kept on payrolls and things and they wouldn't do anything. I mean, they didn't earn their keep or they didn't fight for them or anything. They just made trouble. MK: Well, was it those of you who pointed this out to people like Hallie Flanagan or Farnsworth and said, "If we don't get rid of these people, we're gonna destroy the project," was there a movement toward -- KL: Well, I don't know that there was a movement toward that. For some

reason, during those latter days of my part of Federal Theatre, it %us so bad and so wrong that I didn't see how they were going to pull it out of its trouble. And it was not long before the end that I got this invitation to come out here and I very politely jumped up and came. MK: So you very calmly resigned. You weren’t resigning in anger, but you just had a good out. KL: I had a very good out. I was very sad about it because I thought it

was a wonderful project and it did marvelous things. It did lots of stupid things, too, and people hung around, you know. Even some of the best people sat a year without doing a lidk of work or anything except getting to an office every so often. But the ones that were creative people were terrific. MK: Tell me some of the people you remember most happily. I would like to write a book about Hallie Flanagan and I d like to understand what kind of person She was. KL: You should be able to find lots of friends of hers. MK: And I'm trying to talk to different people and I'm going to go see Emmet Lavery Monday. KL: Oh, good! That's wonderful. MK: And I think that he was fairly close to her. I know he worked with her later on at Smith and he had worked before with her at Wassar.

KL: Yeah. Well, she was a wonderful gal. I knew her quite well, not too well. But to me she always seemed to have -- and this may be

quite wrong; I don't guarantee that I'm right. But my feeling about her was that she was very collegiate. I. mean, She had a -- it's a very nice point of view. A lot of wonderful things happen in schools and colleges, but it's not professional quite. MK: But would you say she used the plans she had had at Wassar and tried

to make that work for the Federal Theatre? Did she try to organize -- KL: I don't know that she thought of it as directly as that, but she certainly went straight from Vassar into running the Federal Theatre. That was Hopkins that helped her on that. MK: Well, do you think he made a good choice in picking her? KL: I think she was a very good choice but she needed somebody else. She needed a collaborator of some sort who was a professional person. She was a teacher. MK: And she had Farnsworth for a while? KL: Yes. MK: And Howard Miller. How about Howard Miller? (Laugh) KL: (Laugh) Haven't thought of him for years. Oh, dear! MK: What was he like? He's still around and Lorraine Brown is gonna talk to him. He's sick in the bed right now but I think with a cold. KL: Oh, I hope it's only a cold. I didn't even know he was out here. MK: I'll check for you later and see where it is that he is. KL: We were never buddy-buddies. I was nobody's enemy. As far as I'm concerned, everybody's got a right to do what they know how to do.

And if they don't know how, then they should try to learn how at least. MK: Did you see too little of that going on in the Federal Theatre? KL: Well, it seemed to me that the ones that did know are the ones

that were -- like the unit with Houseman and Orson and that sort of thing -- wonderful. And Howard Bay was a wonderful little designer

and so forth and so on. But I'm afraid I was a little impatient with my private feeling about a number of them. I was very pleased once when the business man, the Brinkerhoff man, who was a Washington man really, told somebody that I was the only person around who seemed to know what they were doing or something like that. MK: And that's what you were trying to do, to know what you were doing. KL: Exactly. MK: Was Brinkerhoff with the WPA? Was he like a step above Federal Theatre property things? KL: Yes, I should say offhand. He was very high up in the general business of the thing, but whether he was somebody probably who was

assigned to it by Hopkins or somebody about sort of that level of things. He was over, as far as I know from a business point of view . . .

. . . he was over Farnsworth. And Farnsworth, of course, took over for a While from Hallie toward the end. MK: While She was busy defending herself? KL: I expect. MK: Appearing before the Dies Committee and the Woodrum Committee and that type of thing? KL: Well, I didn't know when she was facing committees particularly. But I just stood up to Farnsworth and I think Hallie also, who was

sitting weeping at the time, as I remember, and said, "It's all going wrong and I don't like it and don't want to be in it." And they probably said, "Well, it's all your fault" I don't know that they did, but I'm sure they thought I %as a little arbitrary about things. And I said, "I'm going to leave," and so I left.

MK: And from then it was just by long distance that you ever kept in touch. KL: There were an awful lot of friends in the outfit. MK: Who were some that you kept up with later? Did you ever see Hallie Flanagan later on after? KL: I think I met her at a congress or a convention or one of those things. MK: If you'll tell me some of these, I could get it on tape since I don't recognize every name. S.R. Syracuse. KL: Syracuse was a paymaster sort of a person. MK: And Feder was -- KL: Feder is a very famous light man. He's still around somewhere. MK: Well then, we'll try to visit with him. KL: He's somewhere in the East. He left the theatre and went into

lighting buildings, which is a very good paying sort of a job, I believe. And he's very good at making money. He was with Houseman and me when we did Four Saints in Three Acts. 10K: Was that out here in Pasadena? KL: No. It may have been done out here, too. It was done first in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. MK: And what year would that have been? KL- 1934, I think. So before Federal Theatre time? KL: I can check that fairly easily because Houseman -- that was one of his projects: MK: Was that a premiere of Gertrude Stein's play or had it been done before? KL: Never been done before. It was a beginning and we did it in a little

theatre in the basement of the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford. And it so successful -- we did it, I think, like one weekend or something or other -- that the New York producer called Harry Moses, who was really a bra manufacturer, but he loved the theatre, brought it into New York and we went into the 44th Street Theatre and played it for quite a while. In other words, it was a properly professional thing but it was not built in a shop or anything. Most of it was built on my dining room floor. It was an all-Negro cast and mostly singers and quite fantastic. There's quite a bit of documentation About it in somebody's book. MK: For example, who was in that cast? Who were the Negro actors? Were

there any Negro production people involved with it? Houseman directed it, right? KL: Houseman directed it and produced it really. MK: You did the sets? KL: No. That's a very interesting little thing. There was a -- she's

dead now -- there was a woman in New York -- Virgil Thomson did the music and Florene Stettheimer did the original scenery for the thing.

But it was not done to be a professional production but it was a thing that they used to do at people's parties and things. And Houseman was sort of the third of that combination. The man who was the producing head of the Ringling Circus, Chuck Evans, was part

of the thing too. And he had something to do with the museum in Hartford. And in the basement of the thing was a whole little stage. The Fire Department didn't like us because it wasn't particularly a fireproof production. So that when we brought it into town to play in the 44th Street Theatre, the day before we opened the entire set

had to be spray fireproofed to the point that the little man who played St. Ignatius or whatever his name was, in one scene he sat on a branch of coral which was a seat on the seashore and it had been sprayed also for fireproofing. And when he sat down opening night it went sssss, which was a little disconcerting. (Laugh) MK: And did the all-Negro cast go then from Hartford to do the New York production? (Interruption) KL: And it was successful. I don't know whether they ever did it out here.

I at one time, not so many years ago, I thought maybe I could get it wangled into a production. And I knew a great many of the Negro actors and singers out here because one of the other things I did later in my life, after your part of the thing, was at the Greek Theatre. We did a Carmen Jones, is that what it's called? Yes. An all-Negro musical show and like that. And a lot of the same people turned up in that. MK: Who are some of those? KL: Oh, I don't know. I could find a program of the whole show. MK: Sometime maybe we'll find it and look at that, not right now.

Did you get to know any of the Negro playwrights that wrote plays for the Federal Theatre that Houseman could use like Hughes Allison? Have you ever heard his name? KL: NO. MK: Or Theodore Browne? Theodore Ward? KL: He sounds very familiar. And, of course, the Negroes at the Federal

Theatre did a wonderful production of Macbeth. That Was fun. Those were all exciting people. MK: Did Mr. Lawson ever do anything for the Federal Theatre? There was a

New York production of Processional, I think, that the Federal Theatre put on. KL: I don't think I knew about it if there was. MK: We have a script of Processional that is from the Federal Theatre

Flay Bureau and I'm pretty sure they must have, at some point, done a New York production of it. KL: I should think that's possible. The Play Bureau was Federal Theatre? MK: There was a Federal Theatre Play Bureau. KL: Did it have anything to do with the regular (Interruption) MK: Well, do you know what we were thinking of? Since UCLA had such a good motion picture department, asking if we could have a gathering

of the New York Federal Theatre people who are out here -- maybe there are 15 or 20 people -- and have a get-together and a group chat and reunion type of thing. I think, because it's Christmas vacation, we didn't get much cooperation, but we hope to make another

trip in March, just a few months from now, and do that then and video tape it. KL: That's a very good idea. Well, that gives me a little spare time to look in some of the boxes in the back roam. MK: If you could zero in and think about Federal Theatre people you knew and any of the things you might still have. KL: Yes, because there were lots of them around. MK: I have a note, that you designed the settings and costumes for A Point of Honor, which was done at the Fulton Theatre in 1937.

KL: That's true. That was just a straight professional production in New York. MK: And then Nights of Song, which would have been later, after you had left the Federal Theatre, I would think. KL: So was Point of Honor. None of that was -- MK: Was Federal Theatre? KL: No. (Interruption) MK: Maxine Borowsky. And she was a costume designer. KL: Yeah, I think she was the head of one of the costume units. But she was wonderful. She's a painter also. I called her some months ago. MK: Where does she live now? KL: Well, she's been living out here but when I called her she was just on the point of leaving to go to Sweden, I think it was, to somebody's wedding. Her husband had died so that. .

MK: But Mrs. Borowsky's home is out here on the West Coast? KL: Yes, it was unless she's retired forever to Sweden or somewhere, which I don't think she will have. She's a wonderful gal. She's a driving force. They came out here quite a long time ago. He was a writer.

MK: What is her husband's name? KL: Marvin. Marvin and Maxine. MK: Borowsky. KL: Borowsky, yes. I know they had a daughter. They may have had -- and she was a cellist, so it was a good, lively, creative family. I'm a little in favor of people who do things to be seen by other people. I guess that's what I mean; I don't know.

MK: What did -- is this Abe Feder's wife who is Mildred Feder? Do you remember Mildred Feder? KL: I don't know whether he had a wife. Well, that isn't such an unusual last name. KL: No. MK: So that there wouldn't necessarily be any connection. Let's see,

what other name looks really familiar. James Curran has a very distinctive signature. I don't know what he did. I guess I really need to study these names for a little while. I'll be careful with it and I'll bring it back to you in the next few days. KL: All right. I don't know whether there's any trick way of xeroxing it or anything like that and reproducing it. (Interruption) KL: . . . like 1939 and 1940 or about then. MK: 1939-42? Would it have been that long? KL: Yes, it was, I guess, three or four years. They did summer operetta

seasons, and I did costumes and scenery for a production of Showboat. And then I went to war.

MK: And then you went to India after that? KL: Yes. I went to India in 1943. MK: And then when you returned did you have a note about your being

Executive Director of Pelican Productions for John Houseman at the Coronet Theatre? KL: Yes, we opened the Coronet Theatre, which is a charming little theatre which is now a porno house, I believe, for movies. But it was just being built at the time that Houseman was out here and

I was out here. And a lady who was a dancer and taught dancing owned the building, I mean was having it built. And it was quite

wonderful because it had this little theatre which only had 200 and some seats. But it also had a great big rehearsal room on the second floor and offices at the front. And several wonderful things were born in my day while I was there. MK: What were some of the plays you did? KL: Well, we started out and did Skin of Our Teeth and House of Bernardo Alba -- I know it was the first out here. And that first season, which was quite a wonderful season, what were they? Well, I'd have to look that up for you. MK: We won't worry about that now. We can just look it up and see later.

And then, later on, have you worked with Houseman any more or have you just kept up with him as a friend? KL: No, I worked with him. He did a production of King Lear in the

Pilgrimage Theatre out here, an outdoor production, which started at UCLA and then moved over to the outdoor theatre. And I worked on that one, which was fun. And what else did I do with him?

Incidentally, I did the costumes for Colonial Williamsburg's big film. Oh, the one that they Show when you go to visit Williamsburg? KL: Yes. MK: I was at Williamsburg last month. KL: And they still have that same -- MK: They still have it. KL: Well, it was quite wonderful because it had a very fine musician whose

name is -- I've forgotten what. But it was George Seaton who was responsible for that and George Seaton is a pretty fantastic producer- director. And his wife, I think, now is the Mayor of Beverly Hills. But she came to me in New York from one of the little theatres -- I think the one down near Philadelphia, whatever that one's called -- and her name was Phyllis Lawton. I met him through her, but he's a fantastic fellow and he, I'm sure, is the reason that I got offered the chance to do that particular thing at Williamsburg. MK: Have you been to Williamsburg and seen it there at the theatre? KL: I haven't been to Williamsburg since it was finished and out. I've

seen it out other places, and one of the nice things is that George owns a copy of it. It was built for a big old thing but it works on a -- there's a version of it that is normal 35 or what- ever you call that kind of film, which he bought and it lives in the Beverly Hills Public Library. I have borrowed it several times to talk about it because it's not only interesting to talk about, but the people who produced it don't mind having it talked about at all, the Rockefellers or whatever.

MK: One thing I really don't want to forget to ask you about is, I feel

like in the thirties experimentation was sort of a key word and that Hanle Flanagan's college experience had been based on experimenting with lights, sound, simplifying settings. Talk to me a little bit about what you think happened during the Federal Theatre time, if you saw any good strides in light, sound or settings experimentation.

KL; Well, everything that Feder did was good. He was as difficult as I am, I imagine, probably. But he was very good and he was with the thing you called 819 or whatever — MK: 891. KL: 891. It has another name which I've forgotten but he did some quite

wonderful things'. Of course, you could experiment rather easily in those days because it was being paid for by the Government, not by the producers, which is always a help, if you've got somebody who has that much imagination. MK: And then was Howard Bay a good experimenter? KL: He was a good designer and I should say offhand in a very modest way and a quiet way, an experimenter. Be was an interesting man. a TAIK: He did an awful lot of things, didn't he later? He had a real long career. KL: Yes. Is he alive or dead? I don't know that even. MK: I think that he's not alive, but I'll have to check on that. I'm not positive either.

Did you feel like Hallie Flanagan encouraged this experimentation? KL: I think She encouraged everything, you know, right and wrong, or red and black, take your choice. MK: She was an enthusiast then. KL: She was a very enthusiastic wean. I liked her very much actually. We had a very happy relationship as a rule. I said, "as a rule." MK: Did your differences come about when your were being arbitrary and she was being -- KL: I don't think I ever had a fight with her or a serious discussion

with her because it always seemed to me that what people were doing, people that were creative people, it was right whether it was right or wrong if it was their things. There was a designer who did the scenery for Macbeth for Houseman's unit whose name was Nat Karson who went on into quite a lot of good things, professional theatre things. That was a very beautiful show in every way. I think Maxine may have done the clothes for that. MK; Everything that Houseman did had a mark of distinction, didn't it? KL: Always. It still has. He's a wonderful man, just unbelievable really.

MK: Because he still has so much energy, doesn't he?

KL: Yeah. He's just been acting again. MK: Did you go to see him in The Paper Chase?

KL: Yes. I was invited to go and see The Paper Chase which was very nice. I like it when people remember me, you know, over the years, for good or for ill.

MK: Have you seen him in person recently? I know he's in New York now. KL: Yes, I think he's in New York now. I saw him the last time he was out here. He almost always remembers and I know for the opening of of The Paper Chase or at the time -- no, at the time of the book, I got an invitation from Norman Lloyd who was his helper for a long time. And, of course, now he's the head of the KTLA. . . CET the public circuit thing. He does plays for them now.

NE: Hollywood Television Theatre I think it might be called. KL: That might be what it's called. MK: We're supposed to go by and talk to him, but, um. KL: He's worth talking to and he has a beautiful, clear memory of things and grew up, you know, in the theatre. MK: So he was Houseman's protege sort of? KL: That's right. That’s right. (End of interview)