PARDON ME, YOUR CLASS IS SHOWING

(ESSAYS AND RELATED MATERIAL
CONCERNING CLASS STRUCTURE AND THE ARTS)

by

Emanuel Fried

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty
of the Graduate School of State University
of New York at Buffalo in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of:

Doctor of Philosophy

September, 1974

"It is a kind of letter to that sub‑culture where the sinews of the economy are rooted, that darkest Africa of our society from whose interior only the sketchiest messages ever reach our literature or our stage."

Arthur Miller, regarding
A Memory of Two Mondays

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface: A Letter to Dr. Leslie A. Fiedler, July 17, 1974 . . . . .     i

I.   Pardon Me, Your Class is Showing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1

II.  Union Life and the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  91

III. The Threatening Nature of 593 Writers Workshop . . . . . . 118

IV.  Writings of Working People: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
       A collection of works written by factory workers
       under guidance of 593 Writers Workshop Director
       Emanuel Fried, published by Local 593, United
       Steelworkers of America, AFL‑CIO‑CLC (Daniel
       Gospodarski, President)

V. Letter to all Niagara Frontier Unions, from Daniel E.
       Gospodarski, President, Local 593, United
       Steelworkers of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

VI. Probing for a New Direction in the Theatre and Other
       Arts in the Community (A proposal submitted by
       Emanuel Fried to Erie Community College,
       September, 1972) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

VII. Material sent from Office of the President of State
       University of New York at Buffalo in connection with
       effort "to bring union and working class life into
       the mainstream of the arts—and the arts into the
       mainstream of union and working class life."
       (January, 1973) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

       A. Letter from SUNYAB President, Dr. Ketter . . . . . . . . 186

       B. Enclosure (1) — Invitation to all universities
          and colleges within approximately 500 miles of
          New York City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 188

       C. Enclosure (2) — Concerning the Project and the Play   190

       D. Enclosure (3) — Registration Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

VIII. Proposal submitted by Emanuel Fried, Assistant Professor of
       English at State University College at Buffalo, in reply
       to request from Chancellor Boyer and University‑wide
       Committee on the Arts (State University of New York),
       published with other proposals and circulated to
       participants in April, 1974 Celebration of the Arts . . . . . . . 193

IX.   Letter to Emanuel Fried from Allen Sapp, Director, Arts/Worth,
       a project of the National Council on the Arts, in
       response to proposal submitted by Fried in connection
       with April, 1974, Celebration of the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

ABSTRACT

(Essays and Related Material Concerning Class Structure and the Arts)

by

Emanuel J. Fried

This is a probe from the inside, based on Fried's firsthand experience as playwright, union organizer and teacher. Using as the microcosm his experience in the theatre and in the labor movement in his home community in Western New York and in the theatre of Broadway, Off‑Broadway and Off‑off‑Broadway in New York City, he arrives at observations to be applied to a much larger macrocosm.

The first essay is itself titled Pardon Me, Your Class is Showing, and in it Fried recounts some of his experiences when as a playwright he forces himself, on advice of others, to approach leaders in the community's cultural establishment—no surprise to Fried, the same men are leaders in the community's industrial and financial establishment, the most outstanding being the man with whom he directly clashed in a number of strikes when he was a union organizer—and though he knows his and their views differ, he asks them for help to get his plays produced.

In this and in the second essay, Union Life and the Arts—in which he tells also about FBI efforts to disrupt and prevent production of his plays both in his own community and in New York City, Fried details the incidents that led to his resolve to never again seek help from the community's cultural‑industrial‑financial establishment, even if it means he never again will get a play produced.

He concludes the second essay by reporting initial success with a writing class he sets up in the union hall of Local 593, United Steelworkers of America, to attempt an end run around the roadblock set up by the community's cultural‑industrial‑financial establishment.

In the final essay, The Threatening Nature of 593 Writers Workshop, Fried tells what unexpected developments in relation to the community's labor establishment led to the decision to quickly publish a mimeographed collection of whatever stories and poems had already been written by factory workers in the writing group.

Seeking new insights through exploring his own experience in trying to bring union and working class life into the arts, Fried comes out somewhere different from where at the outset he expected to arrive.

A surprise to himself, the result of his organization and investigation and evaluation of his firsthand experiences in this area is the realization that the community's industrial and financial establishment, with whom he thought he had made an irrevocable break, will hurry to embrace the new direction in the arts he is trying to create with 593 Writers Workshop—(if it appears to be heading for success)—before it will be embraced by the community's labor establishment.

Included in PARDON ME, YOUR CLASS IS SHOWING are these stories and poems written by members of 593 Writers Workshop and also proposals and letters relating to Fried's efforts to bring union and working class life into the arts in the community.

© 1974, 2003 Emanuel Fried. All rights reserved.

SOURCE: Fried, Emanuel. Pardon Me, Your Class Is Showing (Essays and Related Material Concerning Class Structure and the Arts). PhD dissertation. Dept. of English, SUNY/Buffalo, September 1974. iv, 201 pp. This web page: title, frontis., contents, abstract (pp. 200-201).

Preface: A Letter to Dr. Leslie A. Fiedler, July 17, 1974

Pardon Me, Your Class Is Showing (Chapter 1)

The Emanuel Fried Center

Contact Mindy Fried for permission to produce Manny Fried’s plays
& for other non-web-site-related business.