The Race to Urga explained

The Race to Urga
Music:Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics:Stephen Sondheim
Basis:Bertolt Brecht's play
The Exception and the Rule

The Race to Urga, later renamed A Pray by Blecht, is an unfinished musical adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht play The Exception and the Rule.

Collaboration on the production was initiated in 1968, with Jerome Robbins asking John Guare to write the adaptation. Leonard Bernstein was to compose the music, with Stephen Sondheim onboard to write the lyrics.[1] The new musical was announced to open at Lincoln Center in January 1969, but Robbins left the production during cast auditions, and the project folded.[2]

No cast album was produced, though a demo was recorded in 1968.[3] Jerome Robbins returned to the show, still incomplete, as director and choreographer of an April 1987 workshop production at Lincoln Center.[4] [5]

Synopsis

Capitalism exploits the working class during the early twentieth century.

Workshop song list

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.sondheimguide.com/unproduced.html#Exception A Pray by Blecht
  2. Long, Robert. "Broadway, The Golden Years: Jerome Robbins And The Great Choreographer-Directors : 1940 To The Present" (2003). Continuum International Publishing Group., pp 133-134
  3. http://www.castalbums.org/recordings/6262 Exception and The Rule Demo
  4. https://books.google.com/books?id=HeaNxWanwEYC&dq=Sondheim+%22The+Race+to+Urga+%22&pg=PA501 Vaill, Amanda "Somewhere: The Life Of Jerome Robbins" (2006), p. 501
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20090411154037/http://www.leonardbernstein.com/timeline.htm Leonard Bernsten Timeline, 1987