''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 ''The Exception and the Rule'' (in German ''Die Ausnahme und die Regel'') is a short play by German playwright Bertolt Brecht and is one of several ''Lehrstücke'' (Teaching plays) he wrote around 1929/30. The objective of Brecht's Lehrstücke w ...

''. Collaboration on the production was initiated in 1968, with

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

asking

John Guare John Guare ( ;; born February 5, 1938) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of '' The House of Blue Leaves'' and '' Six Degrees of Separation''. Early life He was raised in Jackson Heights, Queens.Druckman ...

to write the adaptation. Leonard Bernstein was to compose the music, with Stephen Sondheim onboard to write the lyrics.''A Pray by Blecht''
Sondheim Guide The new musical was announced to open at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

in January 1969, but Robbins left the production during cast auditions, and the project folded. No cast album was produced, though a demo was recorded in 1968. Jerome Robbins returned to the show, still incomplete, as director and choreographer of an April 1987 workshop production at Lincoln Center. Leonard Bernsten Timeline, 1987
leonardbernstein.com, retrieved December 9, 2009

Synopsis

Capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

exploits the working class during the early twentieth century.

Workshop song list

* Prologue Marches * Intro / In Seven Days Flat * You're In Hann * The Secret * The Suspicion Song * Coolie's Dilemma (lyrics by Jerry Leiber) * Doors to Urga * Get Your Ass In There * Coolie's Prayer * Number One * The Zorba's Dance

References

External links

Sondheim's Lost Musical
{{DEFAULTSORT:Race To Urga, The 1986 musicals Musicals based on plays Musicals by Leonard Bernstein