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[0:14] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W. Schneider, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals: The Podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:30] Robert W. Schneider: Today's episode focuses on chapter 9, the 1937 production of The Cradle Will Rock. And with us today is the author of that chapter, Professor Johanna Pinzler of Marymount Manhattan College.

[0:42] Robert W. Schneider: Professor Pinzler is an award-winning theater director and educator. She directs at regional theaters and serves as an artistic associate and a resident director at Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, California, where she spends most summers working with students from top theater programs around the country. She also holds an MFA in acting from Brooklyn College and is a fantastic director. That's my own editorial comment at the end. Is a fantastic director. Joanna, I'm so happy that you're able to join us today.

[1:09] Johanna Pinzler: And I'm so thrilled to be with you today. Thank you so much for having me.

[1:12] Robert W. Schneider: Thank you. And you know, your chapter is so interesting because it covers so much about censorship, which is something that we sort of do in this country, but we don't do it as codified as other countries that actually have censorship offices. So we'll talk a little bit about that in a second, but I think your chapter brilliantly brought out the saga of this particular musical. What makes The Cradle Will Rock a key musical?

[1:36] Johanna Pinzler: Well, I think it has everything to do with that history, with where it falls in our history as a country, and really with its moment, right? It falls right there in the Great Depression with that moment where it is censored. That the government shut down that musical. It was the first time that that ever happened. That the government shut down a musical, right? So by doing that, it really that musical might not have become the musical it became if it hadn't been for the fact that the federal government decided that that musical shouldn't open. And it was, we could argue that you could debate why they decided that that musical shouldn't happen, but I think it has everything to do with the moment in history.

There were strikes happening across the country at that time, and it was a musical all about unions, it was a musical all about arguably against capitalism and against sort of the evils of business, and it was a musical about how that was something that should be fought against, and the American government for its own reasons decided that this musical was dangerous, and so they decided that it shouldn't happen, and so they created red tape that shut the show down, and the producers of the musical decided that that was simply not okay, and they found a way to make the show happen. Nobody ever stepped on stage, it was done without sets, it was done in a way that the unions who had forbid them from doing it, ironically, that they did it from the audience, and by doing it that way, they created an entirely new approach to theater.

That was not their intention, but that's what they did, and by doing that, they then created this entire new approach to theater, which then inspired theater makers for the next century in ways of making theater that hadn't really been thought about before. And I think that is why it became one of our key musicals. First, because of the censorship, and then because of what it inspired based on what it had to become because of the censorship.

[4:02] Robert W. Schneider: The other question that we ask all of our authors that are doing this podcast is why did you want to codify the history of this particular show? You could have picked any shows off the list, but you said yes to this one. What excites you about this musical?

[4:18] Johanna Pinzler: Actually, for me, it comes down to that night. I find the story of The Cradle Will Rock and the way the producers would not be shut down. And the way that they decided to make this play happen, no matter what, when they were told they couldn't do it, they found a way. They found a theater. And Marc Blitzstein sat at a piano on stage and they said to the actors, you are American citizens, and it is your right to stand up from your seats in the audience and say your lines, and that they were brave and they did it. And I find that so inspiring. And the stories from that night, the people who witnessed it, the people who were there, I find that story so moving. I always have. And then honestly, there's a movie that came out in 1999 that Tim Robbins made, and it is one of my favorite movies about theater.

And I weep every time I watch that movie. And ever since I saw that movie, I became obsessed with the musical. I didn't know about the musical before I saw that movie. And ever since I saw that movie, I've actually been obsessed with the musical. It's actually not one of my favorite musicals, but that story about it I find so inspiring as a theater maker. And that's really what I find what I love about the show.

[5:43] Johanna Pinzler: Everyone knows The Cradle Will Rock pretty much because of this story, right? In which people were standing up and, you know, they were in the audience and they were singing and saying their lines, but that wasn't the original intention of Marc Blitzstein. The original intention was it was a fully designed production and it was fully orchestrated. So is there a way that you can marry in a, as a director in a contemporary setting, Blitzstein's original vision for it with the visceral quality that that audience on that opening night was feeling when they were seeing this very raw story being told?

[6:17] Johanna Pinzler: That was Orson Welles' vision. And in fact, if you read John Houseman's book about his book Run Through, he talks about the fact that Orson Welles got a little out of control in his design of the show in many ways. He was out to prove something as a young director and over-designed the show in many ways. He had glass wagons and he had gone way far to over-design this show. And in many ways, it's ironic that he did that, and that nobody saw that version because it wasn't necessary to the show. I don't think Blitzstein cared what they did with his show. He was just excited that they were gonna do the show. So it wasn't by the, I think part of the reason that the version of the show we all continue to see is this completely stripped down version is that it didn't need more than that.

I think if it had needed more than that, then we would have seen designed versions since then, but we haven't. And I think that there are many shows that lend themselves to shows that don't need, there's plenty of shows that need to be designed, but there's also plenty of shows that absolutely don't need design. And in fact, if you think about the way that the show has always been done since its original version is that Blitzstein, the man at the piano, calls out for you what the scenes are, and that has become part of the production now, where he calls out the setting, the room that we're in, that he says exactly where we are, which for the audience paints exactly where we are. It helps set us where we are.

That's become part of the production now, right? I actually don't know if in the original, if in Welles's version, I assume we didn't hear where the locations were, but that's become part of the script now, right? I suppose if you were going to do a fully scripted version, you wouldn't do that anymore, but that's now become part of the script that the man at the piano says that, right? So it's an interesting chicken and egg thing of once Blitzstein became part of the production, and now the man at the piano is part of the production. That's in the script now saying where we are, the sort of stage directions piece of it.

[8:24] Robert W. Schneider: And do you think that has given future musicals freedom in terms of what can be physically presented on a stage and what the audience will buy into?

[8:35] Johanna Pinzler: 100%. And I think that it in many ways I assume there were plenty of directors back then and as time went forward who kind of were, had a box opened where they kind of went, of course. Why should I have to, by the way, spend a ton of money on sets when I can just tell them what I'm doing? Or imagine? I mean, I think about shows like A Chorus Line, and I think about the fact that they do it, A Chorus Line is basically a gigantic memory play where they, you know, they're yes, they're standing on stage and it's all set on a stage, but they spend most of the time telling stories about memories where they're telling us about what their pasts are. We don't have to see it. They tell us about it and they live through it, and so we watch them do it.

There's so many shows where Our Town is a play where we see some furniture, we see chairs and tables, but they tell us about the town and we believe them, right? Because we understand we don't see a set in Our Town, we don't see a fully realized set. It's not meant to be done that way, right? And it's granted that's not a musical, but there's plenty of theater like that where if we saw the set, it would destroy the illusion. As audience, we trust our audience to fill in to color it in for us or for them that they can visualize what we're telling them to visualize better than we can in many ways. And I love that. I love that as a director. If we sketch it for them, they will color it in. They will actually make it much richer in many ways in their mind than we can by giving them an elaborate set. It's actually my favorite kind of directing to do it that way, to sketch for them instead of fully fleshing it out.

[10:24] Robert W. Schneider: Do you think a show like The Cradle Will Rock, which is almost a hundred years old now at this point, is there a place for it today in modern musicals? Will it still have relevance for audiences?

[10:37] Johanna Pinzler: I think it falls under that sort of the same question could be asked about Brecht. Does Brecht's work have a place? Is it relevant? I think that the argument for when you're talking about unions and the formation of the idea of can the poor rise up, can sort of the man, I'm making big quote fingers with my fingers, can we rise up against oppressors as a group? Can we, can wrongs be righted in a way, right? Can we bind ourselves together as humans who want to do the right thing against an evil sort of the rich evil? Because that's really sort of what I feel like The Cradle Will Rock always feels to me about, sort of can the poor rise up against the rich and make things better, right?

[11:36] Johanna Pinzler: That in its simplest terms, that's how I see what's happening in CRADLE WILL ROCK. Um, but there is a very, and it's very black and white that way. You know, Mr. Mister is evil. The Liberty Committee are basically seen as a dark evil thing, whereas Joe Worker is good, right? And the sort of the people who have been, and if you're not good, this Moll has been downtrodden. There's a reason that she is who she is, and it's because she hasn't had a chance to be anything other than what she is, right? And so there's a lesson there that I suppose is important. It is very dated, it is very caught in the time that it was written. Histor, but for history purposes, I find I think it's interesting and important to learn.

I think when we're looking back at that time, it is an important history piece. I think that it is of its time. And I always have trouble with stuff like that that's of its time and wondering whether there's value in how much value is there in exploring that work when we could be creating new work to explore the time we're in now and to explore struggles that exist now.

[12:52] Robert W. Schneider: Do you think if The Cradle Will Rock had just been allowed to open without any sort of government interference, we would even be having this discussion right now?

[13:00] Johanna Pinzler: I'm pretty sure we wouldn't. I act because all respect to Blitzstein and all respect to the work of those actors and things that they were doing. I actually don't think it's that brilliant of a piece of theater. I think that some of the writing, some in fact, in some of the reading that I did to write this piece, I was learning a little bit about some of the genius of the music. I just don't think it's that catchy. I don't think it's that memorable musically. The "Nickel Under Your Foot" is a great song, but I think it's a great song more because I've heard it enough. I don't think it's catchy. I don't think these would have been singles that you would have heard. They're not Cole Porter type, you know, you wouldn't have heard this music.

"Joe Worker" is a great song, but again, I think it's a great song in the context of the show. So I don't believe that, I think it probably would have disappeared the way a lot of musicals of the 30s did. Um, it would have been interesting to know if Blitzstein would have done much more work. He didn't. There's, I I'm struggling to think of other great Blitzstein musicals. He died very young.

[14:10] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah.

[14:10] Johanna Pinzler: Yeah, he died very, very young. So you're absolutely right. We don't really know what else he would have contributed or how he would have, you know, changed with the times. Let's imagine that a theater company comes to you and says, "Hey, we want you to direct this piece." Um, and you have to say yes in this one.

[14:25] Robert W. Schneider: You have to say yes in this one.

[14:28] Johanna Pinzler: Okay. Um, how do you find your way into it? How would you begin crowd creating this world for your actors?

[14:37] Johanna Pinzler: Well, I might start by absolutely not even putting it in a theater. I might try to find a site-specific space to put it in where you and I, I really like the idea too of, you know, so often, I'm sorry, let me back up. So ever since the original, you often hear about this being done in theaters like proscenium-style theaters where the actors are on stage in a row of chairs where it's sort of done very straightforward that way. Um, I've also seen it done where the actors do come out of the audience, much like the original production. And that's interesting too. I think it would be really interesting to do it somewhere completely non-that's not a theater, a warehouse space, or um, I don't know, an underground, somewhere underground, somewhere that feels like it's um illegal and not allowed, right?

Somewhere so that you feel like you're somewhere where we are, it's clandestine. Something about that idea feels right to me about the piece because it, because of the original, the origins of the piece and how it was being done in a way that was basically in essence illegal. I like the idea of going back to that route of finding a way to do it where it almost feels like you need a secret knock to get in to see it, right? And where the people in the audience could almost be the people in the show. So you don't know who's in the show when it's starting. And going starting from there, the idea that anybody could be in the show. I like that idea.

[16:15] Robert W. Schneider: Would you try to put a contemporary aesthetic on it that the actors in the show are wearing the same clothes you and I would be wearing today?

[16:23] Johanna Pinzler: That might be interesting to try that, having not had thought about this before this conversation. Um, I think that would be fascinating. I also think it'll be really fascinating to see if you could play with gender with this and to see if you could play with to also really, you know, to make sure that it is not that you're keeping away from, you know, I would want to have this show be less white, less male, less right, to see if you can get this show to reflect specifically, especially if I'm doing it in New York, to have it look more like New York actually looks, um, to have it feel urban, to have it feel like that, to have it feel sort of like a real reflection of what that urban setting feels like.

Um, it would be really interesting too to really look too, possibly at what it means to be a have and a have not in New York as well. I don't know if that, I mean, that again, I'm literally thinking on my feet right now, but if that it would be interesting to see whether you in fact live in the truth of that or not, or do you absolutely cast it in a sort of blind way where you don't think about that and let that be more like another way to go is I've seen productions where what if everybody learns every part and you pick it out of a hat at that night and see who plays what parts, right? That's always, I've never done that in a show, but that's always been an idea that fascinated me, the idea of you get an ensemble of 10 people together and everybody knows everything and see what happens that night.

So tonight so and so is going to play Mr. Mister and tonight so and so is going to play Joe Worker and see what happens. It could be a complete cluster, but it could be amazing, right? And I like the idea of a show like this being truly guerrilla, truly like, let's see what happens. Let's see if we do this by the seat of our pants and what happens. Which is very similar to the vibe that that audience felt on its opening night.

[18:26] Robert W. Schneider: What a brilliant way of encapsulating that. I think out of all the musicals in this particular book, CRADLE WILL ROCK is the one that is so intertwined with the time period in which it was created. And I would love for you to just, if you can give a little bit more information to our listeners about that time period specifically, what is agitprop theater? And is that a genre of theater that interests you? And do we still have it today in the 21st century?

[18:58] Johanna Pinzler: So I'm gonna see if I can get this right. If I remember right, agitprop theater really has to do with truly political, truly um, uh where it is striking a chord in a very specific political way, where it is um making a statement, uh often by a particular party or often by in a particular for a cause, right? So in this case, it would have been verging on socialism. It was, um, I mean Blitzstein I don't think was particularly hiding the fact that he was basically a socialist. Um, and he was, and there was also agitprop, there's also if I'm, I think I'm remembering this right, there's almost, there's a almost tongue-in-cheek aspect to it of um a sort of a comic aspect almost of pushing it over into it's larger than life in that it is um bigger than reality so it, you know, these characters are not, they're almost not human, they are a larger-than-life depiction of an idea, right?

So Mr. Mister is not a person, Mr. Mister is an idea of what capitalism at its strongest is, right? So they're representations. Um, do I think this exists today? Well yes, I'm trying to think of an example and maybe not necessarily in theater per se, but do you see maybe elements of it in either film or television or another medium? I think that there's plenty of, you know, the media today is so in, is so um polarizing and polarized. I wouldn't, it's funny, agitprop implies it's a highly theatrical approach to something. I don't necessarily want to say that the media is as far as agitprop. However, I do think that the media has become something that is done for entertainment in many ways, that people turn to media the same way that they in the past have turned to entertainment.

And it's part of why we have sort of silo versions of media so that people hear what they, they turn to whatever media it is that keeps them comfortable and keeps them um hearing what they want to hear, right? So agitprop, I actually think was meant to challenge. Um, I think that today there is theater that challenges. So my immediate thought on that is a show like You're in Town, for example, which very much is a show that challenges and pokes fun at an idea, right? So the idea is if the world is dying because we are creating an environmental crisis, right? And it's making fun of that idea while also making really clear, like, no, we're creating an environmental crisis, but we're gonna make a satire out of it and laugh like crazy about it, but it's absolutely here, right?

But ha ha ha ha ha. But um, yes, everybody dies at the end, right? Like that show in its way is has some agitprop aspects to it, even though it is more satire than anything else. But I think it has that, it has sort of whisperings of it. I don't know that everybody enjoys You're in Town the way that I do, right? I think that CRADLE WILL ROCK is a pure agitprop musical because of its political, it is political, it is very political. Um, I wonder if a show like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is that more political. I guess it is in its way, right? It's making a comment on a historical moment and it's a clear comment.

[23:08] Johanna Pinzler: It's judging a moment in history, right? I but I don't know. I guess this is a question. I have is that would we count Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson in its way as being sort of agit prop of making a current comment on a president who may have been considered a hero in his time and looking back on it and going, no, he was kind of a bastard. You know what I mean? Like that, and the way you heroicize him is um questionable. One of the things that I find so fascinating about the history of The Cradle Will Rock from musical theater history books is the names Blitzstein and John Houseman and Orson Welles come up all the time, but a name like Hallie Flanagan does not, um who is just as responsible for all of this, uh if not, you know, uh it's equal, I would say. Can you tell us a little bit about who she was and a little bit more about the Federal Theatre Project?

[24:10] Johanna Pinzler: Yeah, Hallie Flanagan ran the Federal Theater Project, which was part of the Works Progress Administration. Okay, let me back up. Um FDR, when he created the New Deal, part of the New Deal was to create the Works Progress Administration. I think I'm getting this right, and he which um basically created works, uh, it gave it employed huge numbers of people across the country doing jobs that were often things like building bridges or, you know, um building, I think the Hoover Dam was a Works Progress in, right? So there was building things and it put people back to work. So the Federal Theater Project was one of these things. And the idea was to put people who worked in theater back to work doing theater.

So it created jobs all across the country making theater that was basically they basically were being paid by the federal government to make theater, and there were a whole bunch of Federal Theater Projects, many projects within New York. And John Houseman and Orson Welles ran the classical theater project, which had a number that I have in my chapter. I can't remember the number, but it had a number and it was the classical theater project. Hallie Flanagan ran, she was in charge of the entire Federal Theater Project, which was huge. It was a gigantic job, and it's pretty remarkable what she did. I mean, she and I assume it was a relatively thankless job, and her it was she was a miracle worker that she managed to it was these things were running in all 50 states.

There weren't 50 states yet then, uh however many states there were at that point, she was running them in all the states and including touring companies, and she was keeping it going. You know, there were she had delegated there were lots of smaller people running smaller, there were people running the smaller projects within all these states, but she was in charge of it on the federal level. And when it was called into question, which is what was happening when they wanted to shut down the classical theater project and a whole bunch of others as well, when they shut down CRADLE WILL ROCK, it was actually because they shut down all new projects from opening. They said nothing new can open, right?

Basically on the day that CRADLE WILL ROCK was going to open. They said no new projects can open. And they managed to time it exactly for when that show was going to open. It was clear what they were doing. And she went to bat for them. She tried to stop it. And there's actually if you watch the 99 movie, you see some pretty close to true um the scripts or uh Cherry Jones plays her in the movie. And they show it's a beautiful scene where they show her arguing with she goes to Congress and she testifies on behalf to try to get them to not shut it down because they shut down the Federal Theater Project not long after that, where they and they basically were claiming that they were heading towards socialism.

She was claiming they were claiming that the Federal Theater Project was supporting socialism by allowing plays like CRADLE WILL ROCK to open because they were supporting, because they were supporting strike breaking and because they were um, or rather because they were um the idea that union somehow the a show that was that allowed for a character like Joe Worker was going to bring down capitalism. I'm simplifying greatly. But basically, they were they were claiming that socialism had infiltrated the Federal Theater Project. And this was, of course, insane, but that's what they were saying. And Hallie Flanagan wrote a book called Arena, which by the way, I think might be out of print now, but she was a genius and she did nothing.

Her work was, I think she worked for the Federal Theatre Project for a decade, and she hasn't gotten nearly enough credit or props for the amount of work that she did in making theater keeping theater alive in this country and employing, I assume hundreds of thousands of people across the country throughout the depression, throughout the 30s, and she was a miracle.

[28:44] Johanna Pinzler: Well, actually, let me go back, let me rephrase. What did The Cradle Will Rock open the doors to in specific other musicals? I think that it, I think CRADLE WILL ROCK actually opened many different creative alleys. I think that as far as the style of writing, it opened up a whole lot of doors. The episodic nature of it became something that we see in many musicals that came later, such as um Chicago does a lot of episodic, there's a lot of Kander and Ebb used a lot of episodic writing in general. Um, so did Sondheim, honestly, that he used a lot of episodic writing. Um, the bare bones bear stage work. We see that in how Prince employed it. Um we see that in um not long after that, the musical Allegro used that.

There was a bit they there was bare bones staging in Allegro. There was um chorus lines, certainly. Um we see this the sort of tongue-in-cheek political style that came along. Again, this is much later, but you certainly see that in You're in Town you see the idea of politics coming on stage with shows like Hair with shows like you know there's it again these shows are nothing in like the style of CRADLE WILL ROCK but you can really sort of feel echoes of what was started in the 30s as you look later in the century of the musicals that came along you can sort of begin to see what he started what was started with this show um I don't know I wrote I wrote so many in the chapter of the no no no and and you've you've you've mentioned no most of them and you know like we were saying before we went on the air you know this you wrote this about a year or so ago so it's the refreshing um you know there's when we look at something like agit prop theater especially in the 1930s in 1935 we have Waiting for Lefty which is um a prime example of agit prop theater for plays and we have CRADLE WILL ROCK.

Waiting for Lefty uses real people real sets uh real names and CRADLE WILL ROCK it takes all of that away and like you said it heightens everything we call him Mr. Mister or Larry Foreman. What is the benefit for an audience in having it so far removed from their actual reality?

[31:12] Johanna Pinzler: Well I think it does that Brechtian thing where by removing the audience and giving them distance, it actually allows them to look directly at it in a in a safer way, weirdly it actually, I think it tricks them into a false sense of security. I think when you give the audience distance from something in the theater, you allow them to sort of look at it and laugh at it and feel safe. And usually what happens is you trick them into feeling like they've got distance, and then actually by the end, they because they've given that false sense of security, you actually end up kind of for lack of a better word, injuring them more because they get so wrapped up in it and feel safe. And then when something happens at the end that's either heartbreaking or that makes them feel good at the end, they feel it that much more because they haven't developed this sort of close relationship.

They didn't from the beginning get all attached to the characters. They kind of sat back and allowed themselves to sort of feel like, oh, I'm not attached to these characters, they're not real, it's not a thing. And then by the end, they've been allowed to sort of be distanced and feel like, haha, it's not I'm not so wrapped up in you. And weirdly, they often by the end have suddenly discovered that they care in a way that they didn't realize that they would, right? And Brechtian Theater also has this ability to look directly at the audience and talk directly to the audience in a way that you can't when you've when you're um trying to be realistic with the audience. When you're trying to do realism, you can't look directly at an audience and accuse them.

When you're doing a show like CRADLE WILL ROCK, Larry Foreman can look right at the audience and say, You're this is your fault, and sort of look right at you and go, you could fix this. Go fix it. And the audience goes, okay. You know what I mean? Like there's there's you can actually accuse your audience when you're doing that, which is sort of what Brecht is all about. Brecht is all about, I'm gonna turn directly to the audience and talk right to you. They practically bring the house lights up and say, like, they breaking the fourth wall is half of what that is, right? You learn about Brecht in school, they talk about breaking the fourth wall as being one of the big rules of that, right? And Blitzstein was a huge vile Brechtville follower, right?

That was who he was all about being like them. So that's what so much of CRADLE WILL ROCK is all about. You give them the distance, you break the fourth wall, you make sure the audience knows that they can fix this.

[34:06] Johanna Pinzler: Now, you I know are about to direct You're in Town for I believe the second time. Um what makes you want to come back to this piece, which has so many thematic elements as The Cradle Will Rock has? And even in its it's in many ways, it's a it's a problematic show. And I love the problems with You're in Town. It's it's I just talked to somebody recently who asked me why I why I think it hasn't been revived.

[34:38] Johanna Pinzler: And I I said I wish it would be revived, but there's something about it that it's ironic because the half the show is talking about like, yeah, this show is never gonna succeed, it's got a terrible title, it's it's complicated, it's um, you know, nobody's gonna write a show, nobody's gonna do a show that's called You're in Town.

[34:54] Johanna Pinzler: Um You're in Town is so funny. Honestly, I feel like in the end, and I'm a comedy person for me, like I love musicals and I love music, and directing musicals is been is my greatest pleasure in life. Um, but for me, in the end, it is that I, from the first time I saw You're in Town to every time I've ever been engaged with You're in Town, I laugh from start to finish. Even the most tragic moments of You're in Town will make you laugh.

[35:24] Johanna Pinzler: And that is, and even like and it's painful laughter. You know, people die or and are killed horribly, and you are laughing and you feel sort of terrible about it, and yet you kind of you're laughing and crying and angry and laughing. And I love that. And I love that sort of juxtaposition of finding the moments in our deepest anger and our deepest sadness to still laugh and to find humor in the darkest moments of our lives, especially now when things are so scary.

[35:59] Johanna Pinzler: The world is scary right now. And and this country, I've never been more scared than I am right now in this, and that's and that's saying something, considering what the last couple of years have looked like. And I find the idea of being able to do this show, which is about a very scary world, but where the writers have found a way to take a scary world and make it funny.

[36:25] Johanna Pinzler: But they're not making light, they're taking a scary world and finding a way to treat it with humor. And I find that genius. And so exploring that genius, and for and I'm doing it at a school, I'm doing it at Marymount Manhattan College, and finding a way to help students learn how to explore humor and explore tragedy through humor, is I think a great gift and a great thing to learn.

[36:57] Johanna Pinzler: I think that so often musical theater students now, in modern times, don't always get the opportunity to really learn what it means to truly explore comedy in all of its nuance, in all of its tragedy, because comedy really comes from tragedy. And how do you learn what that what comedy is and what it means and what a truly thorough exploration of it is and how what a result is when you truly find sort of the depths of what comedy is.

[37:31] Johanna Pinzler: So for me, exploring You're in Town and getting to do it again with a new group with a new creative team on a new stage. Having done it, you know, and I think also doing You're in Town 20 years. This is almost basically the 20th anniversary of it, doing it 20 years later. I mean, that show opened on it was supposed to open on September 11th, 2001.

[37:54] Johanna Pinzler: That show is 20 years old too and that the world is only closer now to what it was depicting back then, and that I find doing that that show doesn't go out of style as far as what it was depicting, and to sort of explore that comedy and to see if that comedy works when the world is scarier. Like I'm really interested in seeing what that's gonna be like.

[38:19] Robert W. Schneider: What do you hope your audience takes away after seeing the production?

[38:30] Johanna Pinzler: I want people to be able to find the humor in everything in anything in the worst moments. I feel like so much of uh, you know, I'm always worried I'm gonna get letters about things like this, but I feel like in many ways as a society, we take ourselves so seriously, and I think it's important to take ourselves seriously and to and to, but I also think it's really important to be able to take a deep breath and look around and see how funny everything is, and to be able to laugh.

[39:11] Johanna Pinzler: If we can't laugh, there's sort of no point, especially with life being such a mess. Like if we can't laugh, then I we're uh I don't see a reason to be. So I guess that's what I want. I want people to be able to look around and laugh and see that that's okay, that it's okay to laugh sometimes, even when things are dark.

[39:36] Robert W. Schneider: And when does the show open?

[39:38] Johanna Pinzler: Sometime in March. I don't know the date. It's sometime in March.

[39:41] Robert W. Schneider: No, amazing, amazing. We will we will absolutely come see it. My last question for you is uh, do you think for well, I'll go back a little bit. CRADLE WILL ROCK is a musical that was censored by a government, a government that prides itself on a First Amendment of free speech. Do you think that today there is censorship in the arts from a government perspective?

[40:05] Johanna Pinzler: Um, and if not, do you think that we might be heading down that path at some point?

[40:18] Johanna Pinzler: I don't I don't know if there's currently censorship of the arts on stage. Um and if there is, I don't know enough to know about it. I I don't work in the commercial theater, I work in academic theater.

[40:40] Johanna Pinzler: So where of course there's a certain amount of censorship because it's in academia. Um, and that's a little different, um, where we have to be careful what we choose to do.

[40:51] Johanna Pinzler: It's oh sorry. But I I do believe that there's a certain amount of censorship that happens on TV. And even and I mean streaming services allow for that to be less so, but I know that sort of net the part of the reason network TV is dying is because of what we can and can't do on network TV.

[41:10] Johanna Pinzler: Um I think that film has probably changed immensely over over the time because of what we sort of can and can't do on film. But I have I don't know how much of that has to do with the government versus capitalism and money and what and what makes money and what people think people want to see.

[41:35] Robert W. Schneider: Do you ever think that uh or should I I should say, is there a circumstance or a situation in which censorship is appropriate?

[41:49] Johanna Pinzler: Censorship of arts specifically. Um I think that there is a I think warnings are important. I think that there's warnings are always important. I think that, but I think and I think that it is everybody it is any producer's right to not produce something that they believe is offensive that they believe should not see a stage.

[42:05] Johanna Pinzler: I believe that there are and that there are certain pieces of theater that are deeply offensive and undoubtedly and shouldn't go on stage but that's my opinion I don't believe though that there's anybody that should say that you can't do that you can't say that says who right like i i and you can't the government can't tell me or you or any no mat or the person who i think is the most disagreeable statement you can't say to them you can't say that you i however don't have to pay the money to listen to it and the and there's a and a producer doesn't have to pay to produce it right but that's money and that's the thing about it right the commercial and this is what is most infuriating in many ways about money right because there's always gonna be someone who wants to produce the thing that deeply offends somebody but does that mean that it can't it shouldn't be produced that's a good question but we could argue about but I don't think we're allowed to say you can't no I because yeah I may absolutely think that something is offensive, beyond offensive, where I will scream at the top of my lungs about how deeply I disagree with that.

[43:53] Johanna Pinzler: And I could carry a sign around outside your theater about how I think you're offensive, but I the government can't tell you you can't say it. And that's what makes our country what it is.

[44:06] Robert W. Schneider: And one last little follow-up, if I may. Something like The Cradle Will Rock, which is a federal theater project, which is being funded by the government. Do they have a right to say this is our money and we don't like the story you're telling?

[44:22] Johanna Pinzler: No. I mean, not when they had the script didn't change. They said okay to the script.

[44:34] Johanna Pinzler: It was it had been they'd been rehearsing it for months. And then they decided not to do it.

[44:40] Robert W. Schneider: Right.

[44:41] Johanna Pinzler: I mean, uh that I think that to me is the thing, really the thing. I suppose they could have said originally that they weren't going to do it, and then they didn't have to do it. But the bottom line was it wasn't like the script got rewritten. They had the script, they okayed the script, they were in the midst of producing it, and then they decided at the last minute, nope, we're not gonna do this because you can't say this.

[45:04] Johanna Pinzler: Well, okay, no, we can't do that. So I think that that really is where they, you know, they really created a monster when they did that, not to mention one of the greatest theater fairy tales that ever was told.

[45:22] Johanna Pinzler: So thank you to the government for uh for giving us CRADLE WILL ROCK for giving us the CRADLE WILL ROCK, whether you wanted to or not.

[45:31] Robert W. Schneider: Professor Pinzler, thank you so much for joining us today. It was an absolute pleasure. The chapter is just marvelous. Um, friends, please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or clicking in today's show's description.

[45:44] Robert W. Schneider: If you want to learn more about The Cradle Will Rock, please also review the links in the below description. I'm Robert W. Schneider, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.

[45:53] Robert W. Schneider: Bye-bye.