On July 25, 1936, after a five-night run, the audience at the Park Theatre in Bridgeport, Connecticut, applauded the closing night performance of Macbeth, produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles for the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The FTP was one of five arts-related projects established during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist unemployed writers, actors, and artists during the Great Depression.

Welles, just twenty-one years old at the time, began his theatrical career directing Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Dr. Faustus for the Federal Theatre Project.

Welles’ designs for the plays were characterized by the creative risk-taking that exemplified his dramatic work. His use of racially integrated casting and “alternative” settings for these masterpieces was an innovation.

The guy was 21 years old. And he hadn’t yet done Citizen Kane.

Critics hailed the results as “startling,” “splendid,” and “colorful.” After a series of sold-out performances in Harlem, Welles’ “Voodoo MacBeth” took to the road, traveling to several cities on the East Coast.

— Just celebrating both the freedom and the capitalism of a country where, every now and then, people have gotten a break; a chance to show what they can do. And no, the government funding isn’t the point: if you think it is, you’re missing the point.

A lot of you are terribly worried that those who are outside of the “Everyone Is a Winner / Everyone Gets a Participation Trophy” society have been left behind. The MENSA candidates have been left behind. It’s true. Or, as we say: “It’s twue; it’s twue!” But that’s an in-joke.

This state of affairs, however, is is no joke. We are outside the mainstream of society, and are falling, ever steadily, ever farther behind.

What is to be done? And by whom? Not us: we are too busy congratulating ourselves on the use of “whom.”

Alarmingly — and in a perverse way, amusingly — there are those who thought that “MENSAtivity” referred to sex, gender, or men. Here’s a spoiler and trigger alert, which have now converged to mean the same thing: it doesn’t.

Increasingly, the world is being divided between the Hugues and the Huguenots, an issue which we all thought was settled a long time ago — much like Greenland. It turns out it wasn’t, though, which is why Trump offered to buy it. His policy was Hugue.

Therefore, we need rhetorical justice and reParthenonations for this under-served community. Serve us with a smile.

If we agree to go up in this thing, they’re going to lock us up and throw away the key.

And who’s the guy in charge of drawing straight lines on the floor?