The Cradle Will Rock

Abstract

The Federal Theatre Project (1935–1939) was one of five arts-related projects established under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was created during the Great Depression as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. Orson Welles’ original production of The Cradle Will Rock was meant to be big and awash with technical elements. The only audience who ever got to see the show with the original intended lavish and extensive set, lights and orchestration was the one at the invited final dress. The story of the afternoon and evening of June 16, 1937 is well documented but, perhaps, none so colorfully as by John Houseman, in his memoir Run-Through. The story goes that when the company arrived at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre on June 16, they found the theatre padlocked and were faced with Federal armed guards who allowed them into the building but would not allow anything at all to leave the building, no props, sets, costumes, instruments, music.