Rocking the Cradle

Chalkdust Productions gets off the ground with Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock March 8-22.

By: Matt Smith
   Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock was supposed to premiere in New York June 16, 1937, at the Maxine Elliott Theatre. The National Guard blocked the entrances and stopped the show — for a few hours.
   Orders came from the right-wing House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington to halt the production and all openings in the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Project, until July 1 hearings on the matter.
   Producer John Houseman and director Orson Welles wouldn’t take no for answer, determined to present Blitzstein’s musical allegory about the advent of the labor union movement in the United States.
   "The entire cast and crew walked for 30 blocks down the middle of the street to the Venice Theatre," says Ken Howard, music director for a staging of The Cradle Will Rock by the new Chalkdust Productions. "It was completely extemporaneous."

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Adam Fitting (above, right) plays Larry Forman in Chalkdust Productions’ staging of The Cradle Will Rock, March 8-22 at the Arts Council of Princeton.

   Sitting alone at a piano, Blitzstein nervously began the show, planning to sing all the parts, as the actors were warned against participating by their union. A couple of lines into the first song, actress Olive Stanton, standing in the audience, began to sing. Each actor followed suit, the crowd went wild, and a theater legend was born.
   Sixty-five years later, Chalkdust Productions, a new community theater group, is making its
own statement with a production of The Cradle Will Rock, running March 8-22 at the Arts Council of Princeton.
   Adam Fitting, who is co-producing and acting in the show, likes the way Blitzstein’s work challenges assumptions about American culture.
   "(In) the atmosphere after Sept.11, (with) patriotism being the word of the day, this play is very timely," Mr. Fitting says. "Patriotic is not just something people say they are, it’s something they do, an action or group of actions, that makes them a patriot."
   The Cradle Will Rock is set in the fictional Steeltown, U.S.A. Mr. Mister, the wealthiest man in town, buys the influence of the major town leaders to join his Liberty Committee, organized to form a band of resistance against the organization of the unions. When the members of this committee are mistakenly hauled into the local nightcourt while observing a union rally, the story of each committee member’s "fall" is told in flashback.
   Mr. Fitting, co-owner of Triumph Brewing Company in Princeton, talks excitedly about opening night — still a week away — as he grabs a quick meal at a downstairs table in his restaurant. He’s enjoying a break from building the set to meet up with co-producer/actor Jay Casale and Mr. Howard, although he jokes his brother Brian, Triumph co-owner and a certified electrician, will have his head if he doesn’t get back soon.
   The fledgling company began when Mr. Fitting, a Princeton resident, met Jay Casale of Manalapan and Princeton resident Ted Clement (director of The Cradle Will Rock) in a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Playhouse 22 in East Brunswick.
   The three men became friends and agreed that while they all enjoyed acting in community theater, each of them hoped to tackle more challenging fare.
   "There’s theater out there that people don’t usually get to see," says the 30-year-old Mr. Fitting, who’s been acting since high school and studied theater in New York. "We got to talking and said, ‘We’d like to do this show, and do that show.’ This was the first play that came up."
   More than an itch to escape Annie or Guys and Dolls, or fill a theater void in the Princeton area, for the three friends, forming Chalkdust Productions was about simply expressing their joint creative vision.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

"(In) the atmosphere after Sept.11, (with) patriotism being the word of the day, this play is very timely," Mr. Fitting says. Above, he rehearses a scene with Alexandra Sanchez-Tobia (Moll).

   "There’s a dearth of community theater in the area, but it was less that than just (attempting) having our own voice in the production and direction of shows."
   Auditions for The Cradle Will Rock were held in December, and the cast has been rehearsing since the end of January. Mr. Fitting says the non-profit company has been "met with kindness," with Playhouse 22 offering rehearsal space, and the Arts Council providing its small second-floor theater.
   The cast and crew have been busy preparing the challenging "play with music," as Mr. Howard describes it. The songs are drawn from jazz and vaudeville but are organized like an operetta. The action shifts between spoken text, the music, rhythmic speech with music and then full-on song.
   "The music comes out of the words and the words come out of the music," says the 39-year-old Mr. Howard, who holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College.
   The Cradle Will Rock came at a time when musicals were treading more coherent, topical ground and moving away from paper-thin plots intended only to move from one light-as-air song to the next.
   Mr. Howard, who will provide the piano accompaniment as Blitzstein did, works for the Office of Legislative Services in Trenton. He’s one of the most experienced members of cast and crew, having served a similar role in community productions for 13 years. This marks his third staging of The Cradle Will Rock.
   Mr. Fitting says the wide-ranging background of participants is one of the most exciting aspects of community theater.
   "One of the great things is (community theater) brings such a diversity of talent and experience together," he says. "You have people with B.F.A. degrees in theater, high school students, people from Westminster and then an accomplished musician."
   Half of the nearly two-dozen cast and crew comes from the "tight knit" community theater scene. The other half is completely new to New Jersey theater.
   In addition to the usual collaboration between actors and directors, Mr. Fitting sees Chalkdust Productions as an outlet for playwrights and composers as well, work-shopping and then eventually producing original works by local playwrights and original music by local composers.
   "We’d really like to give a voice to the entire theater community," he says, "bringing playwrights and composers in."
   Chalkdust Productions plans a full slate of shows this summer, when actors from the college ranks return home, but hasn’t settled on its follow-up to The Cradle Will Rock. Mr. Fitting says that the company is too concerned with the task at hand, and securing a permanent home, but the sky’s the limit.
   "We’re in our infancy. At this point there’s not much we can’t do."
Chalkdust Productions’ The Cradle Will Rock plays at the Arts Council of Princeton, 102 Witherspoon St.,
Princeton, March 8-9, 14-15, 16, 21 and 22, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12; seniors/students $10. For information,
call (609) 430-9345. On the Web: www.chalkdustproductions.org