One-Third of A Nation May 4, 2011

Metropolitan Playhouse, presents a revival of 'One-Third of a Nation,' a Living Newspaper created by Arthur Arent for the Federal Theater Project's Living Newspaper unit. Debuting across the country in 1938, the play now receives the first professional production in the city since then. 'One-Third of a Nation' is the story of the quest of "The Little Man" - a clownish everyman - who simply wants a decent place to live for a reasonable rent. When he stumbles onto the stage, he becomes a part of a fantastical drama that begins with a devestating tenement house fire, and journeys through 250 years of New York real estate, depicted in 19 fast-paced scenes in the Living Newspaper's signature style: by turns comic and tragic, derived from thoroughly researched historical record, and always full of distinctly theatrical life. He meets landlords, street toughs, renting agents and senators, and each teaches him something more about the world he has always lived in but never understood.