Composer Kurt Weill and playwright Maxwell Anderson had been friends since 1938, when they had collaborated on the musical 'Knickerbocker Holiday'. Weill had emigrated from Germany only a few years earlier, after achieving success as a theatre composer in his homeland with 'Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)', 'Happy End', 'Aufsteig' and 'Fall der Stadt Mahogonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny)', and many other works. Under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime the Jewish-born Weill fled from Germany; he settled briefly in Paris, then in England, moving to the United States in 1935. His first staged work in his adopted homeland was the anti-war musical 'Johnny Johnson' (1936).          
   Weill convinced Maxwell Anderson (What Price Glory?, Mary of Scotland, Winterset) to write the libretto and lyrics for 'Knickerbocker Holiday'. After that musical, he tried without success to find a project on which he could again work with Anderson.
   In the meantime, Kurt Weill's career flourished through his scores for the Broadway musicals 'Lady in the Dark (1941)', 'One Touch Of Venus (1943)', 'The Firebrand of Florence (1945)', 'Street Scene (1947)', and 'Love Life (1948)'. The composer had discussed collaborating with Anderson on 'Street Scene' as early as 1945, but it was difficult for Weill to convince the playwright of his ability as a lyricist and the musical ended up with lyrics by poet Langston Hughes. In the same year, 'Street Scene' was produced, Weill and Anderson considered and rejected a project concerning time and space travel.
   While returning by ship from a trip to Greece, Anderson was told about Alan Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country' by Dorothy Hammerstein (wife of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II). He discussed the not yet-published novel with Weill after his arrival back in the United States, because it sounded like a project the playwright could use as a sounding board for his newly-awakened liberal view of brotherhood among men.
   Reading Paton's novel soon after its publication, Weill and Anderson agreed it had musical possibilities, Weill initially feeling the piece would best benefit by having only Greek chorus-like music to comment on the plot. By the time the musical opened on Broadway, it had acquired songs designed to showcase some of the cast, such as "Big Mole," which tended to weaken Lost In The Stars, score structurally.
   Director Rouben Mamoulian had successfully guided the original productions of 'Porgy and Bess', 'Oklahoma!', and 'Carousel'. He was literally recruited for 'Lost In The Stars', because he was already involved with the musical 'Arms and the Girl', which Mamoulian asked to have postponed. The director was very much responsible for shaping the content of 'Lost In The Stars', suggesting spots in Anderson's libretto that could be integrated musically.                  
   Mamoulian also suggested Todd Duncan for the role of the Black preacher, Steven Kumalo, the baritone had appeared as Porgy under Mamoulian's direction in George Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess' in 1935. Warren Coleman, another Porgy alumnus (he was Crown in the original production of the opera), was hired for the role of John Kumalo, brother of the preacher.
   Among other cast members who appeared in 'Lost In The Stars', distinguished British stage actor Leslie Banks played the non-singing role of James Jarvis, grieving father of the murdered young white South African; lnez Matthews (Irma) had replaced Muriel Rahn, an alternate Carmen, in 'Carmen Jones (1943') on Broadway and had toured in the musical's starring role, as well as singing on the first recorded version of Virgil Thomson's 'Four Saints in Three Acts'; Sheila Guyse (Linda) made her 1945 Broadway debut in 'Memphis Bound', a musical starring the great dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and she had appeared in 'Finian's Rainbow (1947)'. Lost In The Stars was the first Broadway credit for concert singer Frank Roane, who led the choral numbers "The Hills of Ixopo" and "Cry, the Beloved Country," but Herbert Coleman (Alex) was already a Broadway veteran at the tender age of ten, having appeared in 'St. Louis Woman' in 1946.
   'Lost In The Stars' opened on Broadway October 30, 1949 to generally admiring reviews, but many of the New York critics felt that librettist Anderson and composer Weill had not been entirely successful in bringing Alan Paton's spare, passionate novel 'Cry, the Beloved Country' to life on stage. Critic Robert Garland, of the Journal American, summed up that viewpoint by writing "Most of [Lost In The Stars] is good, some of it is excellent. But the beauty and simplicity of Paton's book infrequently comes through." 'Lost In The Stars' ran for 273 performances on Broadway. Attesting to its musical stature, it was added to the repertory of the New York City Opera in 1958. A 1972 Broadway revival starred Brock Peters, with a film version-also starring Peters-released in 1974.
   Composer Kurt Weill died April 3,1950, lust over a month after his 50th birthday; he had already written some songs with Anderson for a musical version of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which was then abandoned. Playwright Maxwell Anderson died February 28, 1959.       
   It is unfortunate that so many years after 'Lost In The Stars' Broadway opening apartheid and racial hatred still survive in South Africa, making the final line of Alan Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country' more powerful than ever.
....But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why that is a secret.