European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock at New York City Center

Jun. 25, 2013

Marc Blitzstein’s <em>The Cradle Will Rock</em> at New York City Center

New York City Center launches its new summer musical theater series Encores! Off-Center with Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock, July 10-13. Directed by Sam Gold with music direction by Chris Fenwick, Blitzstein’s landmark pro-labor satire will be performed in a new reduced orchestration for fourteen players and with an all-star cast featuring Danny Burstein, Raul Esparza, Peter Friedman, Anika Noni Rose, Judy Kuhn, Eisa Davis, Martin Moran, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Henry Stram. Ancillary events include a session with Blitzstein biographer Howard Pollack, who will present and analyze two rarely heard vocal works by Blitzstein (July 13), and a retelling of the dramatic story of the original production (which famously defied censorship by the Works Progress Administration) performed by Cherry Jones and Lisa Kron on July 13.

Set in fictional Steeltown, USA, Blitzstein’s allegory of corporate corruption and greed pits Larry Foreman, who is trying to unionize the town’s workers, against rapacious steel tycoon Mr. Mister and a group of prominent anti-union agitators. The good-hearted prostitute Moll and down-and-out Harry Druggist get caught up in the struggle, which culminates with the workers rising up in a passionate finale. Blitzstein’s almost entirely sung-through score boldly blends arias and recitative with popular song, jazz, marches, and chorales.

“A savagely humorous social cartoon with music that hits hard and sardonically.”
- New York Herald Tribune, 1937

View details on the performance materials available from EAMDC for Marc Blitzstein’s Cradle Will Rock and Regina at www.eamdc.com.

Marc Blitzstein
The Cradle Will Rock (1937)
a play in music
libretto (Eng) by Marc Blitzstein
for 5 mezzo-sopranos, alto, tenor, 5 baritones, 2 bass-baritones, 3 basses, male octet and chorus
1(pic).0.2(1.bcl).0.asax(cl).tsax(cl)-0.2.1(tenor-bass).0-timp.perc-pno.acc-gtr(banjo, Hawaiian gtr or pedal steel gtr)-str
[optional: bugles (trumpets or flugelhorns), fifes (piccolos), side drums]
120’

News