Synopsis

Set in New York during the Great Depression, the film follows composer Marc Blitzstein as he struggles to complete a politically charged musical for the Federal Theatre Project. As government officials threaten the production, artists, theater administrators, and patrons confront questions of censorship, political pressure, and artistic independence. A parallel story involving Diego Rivera's Rockefeller Center mural broadens the film's examination of art and power.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film fictionalizes the real 1937 production of Marc Blitzstein's musical The Cradle Will Rock, staged by Orson Welles and John Houseman for the Federal Theatre Project.

• The production was famously threatened with cancellation when the theater was closed and performers were ordered not to appear. Welles and Houseman moved the performance to another venue, where Blitzstein accompanied the show at a piano while actors performed from seats in the audience.

• The film combines the 1937 theater crisis with the earlier controversy surrounding Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural at Rockefeller Center. Rivera included an image of Vladimir Lenin in the commissioned work, and Nelson Rockefeller ultimately ordered the mural destroyed.

• Several historical events are rearranged for dramatic purposes. In particular, Hallie Flanagan's later appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities is brought closer to the events surrounding the musical's premiere.

• Many characters and details are composites or inventions. The film changes some names from the original production and uses fictional figures to connect the theater, political, and art-world storylines.

• The film is not an adaptation of Orson Welles' unproduced screenplay about the same subject. Welles wrote that screenplay in 1984, while this film was written separately.

• A companion book, Cradle Will Rock: The Movie and the Moment, was published in 1999 and discusses the historical episode, the screenplay, and the making of the film.