(Update: The Macbeth window card sold for $2,375 on December 3, 2024.)
A rare theatrical poster promoting the Los Angeles Federal Theater Negro Players’ adaptation of Voodoo Macbeth is on the auction block this month.
Under the direction of 20-year-old Orson Welles, the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theater Project staged an all-Black production of Macbeth set in Haiti in April 1936 in Harlem. The groundbreaking Works Progress Administration-backed play was an unexpected success. The cast of 150 featured Jack Carter (Macbeth), Edna Thomas (Lady Macbeth), Maurice Ellis (Macduff), Canada Lee (Banquo) and Eric Burrough (Hecate).
As the Library of Congress recounts, Voodoo Macbeth was among four New York premieres in the spring of 1936 that “solidified the shaky reputation of the Federal Theater Project, the most controversial of the Works Progress Administration’s arts programs.” It’s notable for myriad reasons, not the least of which was that it was Welles’ directorial debut in New York City. As the Library of Congress notes, Voodoo Macbeth “gave African-American performers, usually restricted to dancing and singing for white audiences, a chance to prove they were capable of tackling the classics.”
After a sold-out 10-week run at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, the company embarked on a national tour throughout August and September of 1936. The tour included stops in Dallas, Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit.
A 14- by nearly 23-inch window card promoting the play’s engagement at Los Angeles’ famed Greek Theater is being sold by Heritage Auctions as part of its December 2-3 Movie Posters Signature Auction. Bidding is already underway and the poster is expected to sell for between $3,000 and $5,000.
Los Angeles’ Federal Theater Negro Players staged their own version at the Mayan Theatre that summer, moving the setting once more to Africa; hence, the window card’s explanation that it was “based on the New York City production of Orson Welles.” This window card is significant because, as the Library of Congress notes, that staging was intended to be “a one-time, visiting performance from the Mayan Theatre production.”
As a result, Heritage Auctions is trumpeting the Macbeth window card as “the Rosebud of this auction.”
Welles spoke fondly of his early success directing Macbeth in Harlem.
“By all odds my great success in my life was that play,” Welles told Leslie Megahey of the BBC in a 1982 interview. “Because the opening night there were five blocks in which all traffic was stopped. You couldn’t get near the theater in Harlem. Everybody who was anybody in the black or white world was there. And when the play ended there were so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open, and the audience came up on the stage to congratulate the actors. And that was, that was magical.”
Footage of the final four minutes of the play were preserved in the 1937 film, We Work Again. (Maurice Ellis and Charles Collins appear as Macbeth and Macduff, respectively, in the brief footage.)
A selection of materials from Voodoo Macbeth are available online from the Library of Congress’ Federal Theater Project site, including the script, designs, photographs, and more.
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