It's All True

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Jason Sherman is the award-winning author of more than eight plays that
have been produced throughout Canada and the United States. His latest
play, as the title suggests, is firmly rooted in fact. As part of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a number of projects were
funded to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. One such
project created under the auspices of the Works Project Administration
was the staging of Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock in 1937. The
pro-union, socialist musical was produced by John Houseman and directed
by Orson Welles.

On the eve of the opening, disaster struck when government funding was
withdrawn. Houseman and Welles decided to mount the production
themselves but faced roadblocks thrown up at the last minute by the
musicians and actors unions. In a superb display of ingenuity, they
managed to give one performance of the show by having the actors work
from the audience instead of the stage.

It’s All True also documents Welles’s troubled relationships with
his wife and his mother, and the romance between the leading man and the
leading lady. However, the focus of this lively, well-constructed play
is the heroic struggle to stage The Cradle Will Rock.