The backdrops featured stylized palm trees and skeleton imagery. It is not certain whether the production removed references to Scotland from the text. Welles's promptbook keeps them intact, but in the surviving film record of the production's climax, the line "Hail, King of Scotland" is truncated to "Hail, King". The Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project was formed in 1935, under the distinguished actress Rose McClendon. She advised national director Hallie Flanagan that the project should begin under experienced direction and selected producer John Houseman as co-director of the unit. Their partnership was never realized; it was soon apparent that McClendon was not well, and she made only a few formal appearances before she became critically ill in December 1935. Regarding the unit's name, Houseman later wrote, "the word 'black' was taboo. 'Negro' was in official and general use though there was some ideological disagreement as to whether it should be spelled with a small or a capital N."  Houseman had established his credentials as general manager of the all-black production, "Four Saints in Three Acts" (1934). On the advice of composer Virgil Thomson, Houseman divided the unit into two sections, between which the project members themselves could choose and could switch between from one production to another. One section was devoted to original black-themed contemporary drama. "The other," Houseman wrote, "would devote itself to the performance of classical works of which our actors would be the interpreters, without concession or reference to color." "For this fine scheme to work," Houseman wrote, "there was one essential condition — that the quality of these 'classical' productions be exceptionally high. It would be fatal to undertake the risky and difficult business of producing Shakespeare in Harlem until I had found a director of whose creative imagination and power I was completely confident." Houseman invited his recent collaborator, the 20-year-old Orson Welles, to join the project. Welles declined at first, since the work would cut into his lucrative radio career and he feared being put back into insolvency, but his young wife Virginia persuaded him to take the job. In the autumn of 1935, Welles called Houseman after he and Virginia had an inspiration. Welles proposed staging an all-black production of "Macbeth", transposed from Scotland to a mythical island setting inspired by 19th-century Haiti and the fantasy world of "The Tempest". The idea offered creative advantages in music, costumes and settings — and the ability to make the role of witchcraft credible to modern audiences by substituting Haitian voodooism.