Theatre Register
The Cradle Will Rock

The Cradle Will Rock

Shows · The Cradle Will Rock

The story of this “Play in Music” is little more than an animated left-wing political cartoon. In Steeltown, USA, the noble union organizer Larry Foreman (Howard DaSilva) does battle against the powerful and corrupt Mr. Mister (Will Geer), who owns everything and everyone in town, and eventually leads the workers to victory.

Opened
1938
Performances
108
Type
Musical
Era
Early
Music: Marc BlitzsteinLyrics: Marc BlitzsteinBook: Marc Blitzstein

Productions2 on Broadway

1938 Windsor Theatre Original. January 3, 1938 · Orson Welles 108 performances
1947 Mansfield Theatre Revival. December 26, 1947 · Howard Da Silva 34 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing not confirmed

Rights We have not been able to confirm the publisher.

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature42 passages

One of the most controversial stage productions of the decade, Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock was initially a project of the WPA’s Federal Theatre, with John Houseman as producer and Orson Welles as director. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p106

The Biltmore enjoyed a momentary return to glory in 1999 when its marquee, lesteemed with 1930s-era posters, was used as a backdrop for the Oscar-nominated film The Cradle Will Rock. book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p238

The Cradle Will Rock.The, 191, 220, 224 book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p361

With the opening canceled, the company was doubly intent on presenting the show. Actors’ Equity, always distrustful of the WPA, had ruled that its members could not perform onstage in a Federal Theatre Project play. The musicians’ union also disliked the project and forbade its members from playing in the show, despite… book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p184

In 1938 a set of songs recorded by original cast members of Mare Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock was issued on the Musicraft Records label. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p97

Howard Da Silva, a brilliant character actor whose presence in a few landmark shows made him an important figure, first sang in the historic The Cradle Will Rock in 1938. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p292

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.