LuPone plays Moll, the role that led to her 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical, an award that also honored her performance in the original London cast of Les Miserables.
LuPone is joined on stage by her son Josh Johnston and cousin Johann Carlo — also alums of The Acting Company — as well as Randle Mell, David Schramm, Tom Alan Robbins, Brian Reddy, Casey Biggs, Mary Lou Rosato, Denise Woods, Derek Smith, Fred Arsenault, Todd Cerveris, Suzy Kohane and Grant Fletcher Prewitt.
Read Playbill.com's feature with LuPone and Johnson here.
“Cradle is an amazing and legendary piece of theater history that is still relevant today,” said LuPone in an earlier statement. “It’s part Gilbert and Sullivan, part Brecht, part Weil.”
Lonny Price directs the one-night-only event; Michael Barrett again serves as musical director and plays the score as he did in the 1980’s production. Via archival footage, John Houseman, press notes state, will "open the May 19 performance telling how he, Orson Welles and Marc Blitzstein overcame the federal government’s attempted shutdown of the piece when someone in Congress concluded that the material was antiestablishment." Houseman repeated that story at the beginning of each performance of his 1980’s Acting Company production both in New York and at London’s Old Vic.
“The Cradle Will Rock, set in ‘Steeltown, USA’ focuses on the efforts of the town's workers to combat a greedy businessman who controls the town's factory, press, church and social organization,” stated Margot Harley, The Acting Company producer and co-founder. “I know that audiences will thrill to it as they have in the past. It is first-rate theater and our cast of Broadway regulars will find even richer meanings today.”
Tickets, beginning at $52, are on sale through Telecharge.com, (212) 239-6200; information on benefit tickets, including dinner with LuPone and the cast, is available by calling (212) 258-3111.
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Founded by John Houseman, Margot Harley, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Schramm and David Ogden Stiers in 1972, The Acting Company has toured 138 productions to 49 states and 10 foreign countries earning a Tony for Excellence in Theater, Obies, Audelcos and Los Angeles Critics Circle Awards.
