For some theater fans, the 1936 production of the “Voodoo Macbeth” (as it became commonly known) is the stuff of legend. Funded by the Federal Theater Project, which gave financial aid to the struggling theater community during the Great Depression, the “Voodoo Macbeth” starred a cast of black performers in an imaginative new staging of William Shakespeare’s so-called “Scottish Play,” set in Haiti in the early 1800s.
The show was a mammoth success, critically acclaimed and financially successful, and not for nothing, it was one of the more noteworthy early accomplishments of a 20-year-old thespian and director named Orson Welles.
While Welles’s theater days have been the subject of biopics before, with films like “Cradle Will Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles” dramatizing his imaginative stagings, the new film “Voodoo Macbeth” may be the first to properly depict this particular landmark production. It’s attractively filmed and, mostly, solidly performed,...
The show was a mammoth success, critically acclaimed and financially successful, and not for nothing, it was one of the more noteworthy early accomplishments of a 20-year-old thespian and director named Orson Welles.
While Welles’s theater days have been the subject of biopics before, with films like “Cradle Will Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles” dramatizing his imaginative stagings, the new film “Voodoo Macbeth” may be the first to properly depict this particular landmark production. It’s attractively filmed and, mostly, solidly performed,...
- 10/22/2022
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
“Voodoo Macbeth” credits no fewer than 10 directors and eight screenwriters, all of them students of or recent graduates from the USC School of the Cinematic Arts. And arguably the most impressive thing about the USC-produced movie — a fanciful dramatization of Orson Welles’ historic 1936 New York production of “Macbeth” with an all-Black cast — is how smoothly it plays as all of one piece. To be sure, you might quibble about certain dramatic liberties the creatives have taken to embellish real-life events — or, in some cases, to completely rewrite history covered in Orson Welles biographies and documentaries. And yes, the film overall is more diverting than stirring. Still, there is a good deal more than novelty value going for this group effort.
Set during the Depression Era, “Voodoo Macbeth” begins with an introduction to the Negro Theatre Unit, an innovative federally funded offshoot of the Works Project Administration, and its two...
Set during the Depression Era, “Voodoo Macbeth” begins with an introduction to the Negro Theatre Unit, an innovative federally funded offshoot of the Works Project Administration, and its two...
- 10/21/2022
- by Joe Leydon
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: USC Originals has scored its first theatrical release, in association with Warner Bros., following Lightyear Entertainment’s acquisition of its film, Voodoo Macbeth. The company behind the Oscar-nominated Australian feature Tanna has slated the pic for release across the U.S. and Canada in October.
Based on a true story, Voodoo Macbeth follows a young Orson Welles (Jewell Wilson Bridges) and a group of committed artists as they set out to create what is now considered a landmark event in African-American theater history—the Negro Theatre Unit’s revolutionary 1936 production of Macbeth.
With Fdr’s New Deal providing funding for the Federal Theatre Project, director Rose McClendon (Inger Tudor) convinces co-director John Houseman (Daniel Kuhlman) to help her bring Shakespeare’s Macbeth to the Harlem community at the Lafayette Theater — with an all-Black cast. Well before Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds, they choose for their groundbreaking production...
Based on a true story, Voodoo Macbeth follows a young Orson Welles (Jewell Wilson Bridges) and a group of committed artists as they set out to create what is now considered a landmark event in African-American theater history—the Negro Theatre Unit’s revolutionary 1936 production of Macbeth.
With Fdr’s New Deal providing funding for the Federal Theatre Project, director Rose McClendon (Inger Tudor) convinces co-director John Houseman (Daniel Kuhlman) to help her bring Shakespeare’s Macbeth to the Harlem community at the Lafayette Theater — with an all-Black cast. Well before Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds, they choose for their groundbreaking production...
- 8/9/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
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