Hallie (Mae Ferguson) Flanagan

Theatre organizer, teacher, and playwright, born in Redfield, South Dakota, USA. She took her BA from Grinnell College in Iowa (1911), and within about 18 months she was married. Her husband died in 1919, leaving her with two children to support. She had done some teaching and play-directing previously, and submitted her own play in a local competition and won. She was then accepted into George Pierce Baker's famous 47 Workshop at Harvard, but decided that she could not afford to pursue a career as a playwright, and with her MA from Radcliffe (1924), in 1925 she accepted a position to teach drama at Vassar. In 1926 she had a Guggenheim fellowship to visit the theatres of Europe, and on her return founded the Vassar Experimental Theatre, which soon gained a reputation for restaging classical dramas. Notable was her 1931 production, Can You Hear Their Voices?, a play about Arkansas farmers that she co-wrote and staged with innovative techniques.

In 1934 she married Philip H Davis, a classics professor at Vassar. In 1935 she was invited to head what became the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), and soon had thousands of theatre professionals producing a variety of works, eventually seen by more than 25 million Americans, many of whom had never seen live theatre before. Her most famous contribution was the so-called Living Newspaper, documentary dramatizations of pressing social issues of the day. In a legendary hearing before the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, however, she was accused of promoting leftist ideas and the FTP was halted in 1939. She returned to Vassar and directed the writing of Arena (1940), an account of the FTP. In 1942 she became dean (until 1946) and professor of theatre at Smith College (until 1955), continuing her lifelong efforts at relating theatre to both educational and social concerns.

Hallie Flanagan (27 August 1889—23 July 1969) was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright, author and director of the Federal Theatre Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration.

Born Hallie Ferguson in Redfield, South Dakota, Flanagan was raised in Grinnell, Iowa. While at Harvard and later at Vassar College, Flanagan began developing her own ideas for experimental theatre.

In 1926, Flanagan accepted a Guggenheim Fellowship to study theatre in Europe. Returning to Vassar, she began to institute many of her new-found ideas with the Vassar Experimental Theatre, which she created.

With the onset of the Great Depression, and masses of people, including theatre folk, out of work, Franklin D.

Flanagan's vision for the Project was to bring theatre to the great majority of the American public who had never witnessed it, plus producing cutting-edge high-quality theatrical material. Concerns over works with messages deemed to be communistic and socialistic plagued Flanagan and the Theatre Project. After four years, the Federal Theatre Project was shut down and Flanagan returned to Vassar.

In 1942, Flanagan accepted a post as head of the theatre department at Smith College and remained there until her retirement.

Flanagan's first husband, Murray Flanagan, died in 1918.

In the 1999 Tim Robbins film Cradle Will Rock the role of Hallie Flanagan was played by Cherry Jones.