The Cradle Will Rock is a 1937 play in music by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. Set in Steeltown, U.S.A., the Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed includes a panoply of social figures. It follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town's workers and combat the powerful industrialist Mr. Mister, who controls the town's factory, press, church, and social organization. The piece is almost entirely sung-through, giving it many operatic qualities, although Blitzstein included popular song styles of the time. The WPA temporarily shut down the project a few days before it was to open on Broadway. To avoid government and union restrictions, the show was performed on June 16, 1937, with Blitzstein playing piano onstage and the cast members singing their parts from the audience. The original cast consisted of John Adair, Guido Alexander, Marc Blitzstein, Peggy Coudray, Howard Da Silva, George Fairchild, Robert Fransworth, Edward Fuller, Will Geer, Maynard Holmes, Frank Marvel, Charles Niemeyer, Le Roi Operti, Jules Schmidt, George Smithfield, Olive Stanton, and Bert Weston. The Cradle Will Rock was reprised January–April 1938 as part of the first season of the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory company founded by Welles and Houseman. An abridged version of the production was recorded and released in 1938, the first original cast recording ever made. History The Cradle Will Rock had its genesis in composer Marc Blitzstein’s Sketch No. 1, a short work that garnered positive comment in the Daily Worker after it was performed at The New School in February 1936. "It had to do with a Moll, a Gent, a Dick; the plot concerned a little proposition and a little chicanery", Blitzstein later recalled. Bertolt Brecht had heard the sketch at Blitzstein's apartment in late 1935, and suggested that he expand its theme from literal to figurative prostitution. Blitzstein remembered him as saying, "There is prostitution for gain in so many walks of life: the artist, the preacher, the doctor, the lawyer, the newspaper editor. Why don't you put them against this scene of literal selling." Blitzstein took up the idea and ultimately dedicated The Cradle Will Rock to Brecht. With revisions, the streetwalker scene in Sketch No. 1 became the first of the ten scenes in Blitzstein’s opera The Cradle Will Rock, while its song, "Nickel Under the Foot",