Student Union Thespians Will Give Timely Musical Drama

For the first time is its history producing a play on its own power, the Student Union tomorrow night will present Mare Bilitzstein's musical drama "The Cradle Will Rock" in Banders Theatre at 8:30 o'clock.

The play which stirred New York audiences for over a year has been described by Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times as "the best music drama of recent years because it was modern and realistic in every fibre of the music and story.

Bilitzstein himself will fly here Saturday to attend the Boston premiere of his play.

"The Cradle Will Rock," a ten-scene satire dealing bitterly with modern industrial strife, was first produced late in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman for the Mercury Theatre in New York. When the Federal Theatre withdrew its sponsorship from the production on the opening night, Welles, Houseman, and the whole cast, followed by an angry crowd of first-nighters, trooped across Manhattan to the Venice Theatre.

There Bilitzstein himself played the score on a piano, on a bare stage lighted only by a single spotlight. Although it was originally planned that the author-composer should merely play and describe the action, the actors rose spontaneously from their seats to deliver their lines for a performance which Archibald MacLeish, curator of the Nieman Collection of Journalism, has called "the most exciting evening of theatre this New York generation has ever seen."

MacLeish a Sponsor

Besides MacLeish on the faculty committee sponsoring the production are David W. Prall, professor of Philosophy; Theodore Spencer, assistant professor of English; Theodore Morrison, '23, assistant professor of English; and Arthur M. Schlesinger, professor of History.

Leonard Bernstein '39 and Arthur Szathmary 2G will direct the H. S. U. production, which will be modelied on the Mercury Theatre's presentation. Bernstein will play the piano, which furnishes all the music.

Donald Davidson '39, who played the lead in the Classical Club's recent presentation of Aristophanes' "Birds," will play the role of Larry Foreman. The entire dramatics personae is made up of "type" names, the scene of the action being "Steel town."

Cast Listed

Other members of the cast are: "Moll," Miss Shirley Bernstein; "Mrs. Mister," Miss Lillian Wolfson; "Sister Mister", Miss Francis Morrison; "Sadie," Miss Sarah Kruskall; "Ella," Mrs. Lynn Gordon; "Gent" and "Junior Mister," Myron Simons '40; "Mr. Mister" and "Dick," William A. Whitcraft '39; "Cop," Rendigs Fols '39; "Reverend Salvation" and "Stevie," Kendall Smith 3G; "Editor Daily and Dauber," Rupert Pole '40; "Yasha," Arthur Szathmary 2G; "Prexy," Robert Rothschild '39; "Scoot," Jonas Muller '40; "Doctor Specialist," Alfred Eisner '39; "Druggist," John Wahlke '39; "Bugs," Robert Seidman '41 and "Gus Polack," Roger Henselman '42.