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Enchanted EveningsThe Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim$
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Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim

Geoffrey Block

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780195167306

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167306.001.0001

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The Cradle will Rock: A Labor Musical for Art's Sake

The Cradle will Rock: A Labor Musical for Art's Sake

Chapter:
(p.115) Chapter Six The Cradle will Rock: A Labor Musical for Art's Sake
Source:
Enchanted Evenings
Author(s):

Geoffrey Block

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167306.003.0006

Marc Blitzstein (1905–64) remains an obscure figure. With few exceptions his music either was never published or is currently out of print. Historians and Broadway enthusiasts relatively unfamiliar with either Blitzstein or The Cradle Will Rock may nevertheless know something of the circumstances behind this work's extraordinary premiere on June 16, 1937 (directed by Orson Welles). As reported on the front page of the New York Times the next day—and almost invariably whenever the work is mentioned for the next sixty years—the show, banned from a padlocked Maxine Elliot theater, its government sponsorship revoked, moved its forces and its assembled audience twenty blocks uptown to the Venice Theater. Once there, in conformance to the letter (if not the spirit) of the prohibitions placed upon its performance, cast members sang their parts from the audience while Blitzstein took the stage with his piano.

Keywords:   Broadway musicals, musical theater, Marc Blitzstein, Orsen Welles

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