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.