Ragtime

The sound of distant thunder suddenly started to climb. It was the music of a substack beginning, an inbox exploding, an email that's spinning... The people called it Ragtime.

1. The Pitch

Well it would’ve been easy to do Mean Girls or another spooky musical this lovely October 3rd (or wait for Taylor Swift’s new album to come out in 10 minutes and write about that) but I’ve had Ragtime on the brain since the new revival started performances at the Lincoln Center Theater this week.

Ragtime, with music by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty and a book by Terrence McNally, is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by E.L. Doctorow. It tells the story of three different families in the turn of the 20th century: the wealthy white family in New Rochelle (just called Father, Mother, Little Boy, et cetera), Latvian immigrant Tateh and his daughter, and ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr and his fiance Sarah.

We follow these families as they interact with each other as well as with celebrities of the time such as Booker T. Washington, Harry Houdini, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford, and more. It’s a very big musical. Huge cast and huge orchestra (which sounds amazing) as we move around the east coast. To put it another way, I think if Christopher Nolan ever directed a musical movie, Ragtime would be the perfect fit. It feels a lot like the spiritual succession to the musical Titanic which opened the year before Ragtime.

Here’s (a shortened version of) the iconic opening number at the 1998 Tony Awards:

2. The History

After out of town tryouts in Toronto (weird for a very American themed musical) and Los Angeles, it opened on Broadway in 1998. It starred Marin Mazzie, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Peter Friedman as Mother, Coalhouse, and Tateh respectively. It also starred Audra McDonald as Sarah and a young Lea Michele as Little Girl (Tateh’s daughter).

It got nominated for 13 Tony Awards winning Best Score, Best Book, and winning Audra McDonald her third Tony of the decade for Best Featured Actress. It had the unfortunate luck of opening the same year as The Lion King and whereas I am usually of the opinion if a show wins both Best Score and Best Book, it should win Best Musical but I do think the direction and spectacle of The Lion King makes it the one exception to that rule. Others that fall into the category or winning both Best Score and Best Book but not Best Musical include Into the Woods (lost to Phantom of the Opera), Falsettos (lost to Crazy For You), Parade (lost to Fosse), and most recently Suffs (lost to The Outsiders).

It had a brief revival in 2009 and a concert production in 2013, but this upcoming revival officially opening next month I think is going to be huge. Directed by Lear DeBessonet it stars Cassie Levy, Joshua Henry, and Brandon Uranowitz as Mother, Coalhouse, and Tateh. Those actors in those roles with this score, I think it is going to be talked about for years to come and if you’re in New York while it’s running, I’d grab tickets ASAP. It’s a limited run, closing in January (although I wouldn’t be surprised if it extended). The roles are all very juicy and I’d be shocked if all three weren’t nominated for Tony Awards. Unless something else announces it is opening shortly, I’d be shocked if either Joshua Henry or Brandon Uranowitz doesn’t win Best Actor in a Musical.

3. Favorite Fun Fact about the show

I don’t have one about the production of the show itself, but in the show it is highly suggested that The Little Boy has prophetic powers.

For example, he tells Houdini “warn the duke!” referring to Archduke Franz Ferdinand whose assassination is largely agreed to be the catalyst of World War I. Houdini doesn’t do anything with this information (he doesn’t know the Archduke anyways) and the boy doesn’t belabor the point.

He is a pretty minor character and these powers don’t really come into play in terms of effecting the actual plot so I just think it’s funny that Doctorow decided to give him psychic powers in what otherwise is a book / musical pretty grounded in reality (as historical fiction goes).

It’d be like in Annie if one of the other random orphans told FDR “warn Huey Long!” and FDR just went “what an odd thing to say” and no one addressed it again until the epilogue where someone runs onstage and says “Huey Long has been shot!” and FDR goes “ahh I get it now.”

4. Favorite Lyric

Man, the opening is so good.

---

🎵And there was distant music,
Simple and somehow sublime,
Giving the nation
A new syncopation-
The people called it Ragtime!🎵

🎵The sound of distant thunder
Suddenly starting to climb...

It was the music
Of something beginning,
An era exploding,
A century spinning
In riches and rags,
And in rhythm and rhyme.
The people called it Ragtime🎵

I also really like the song “Journey On” where Father is leaving on an expedition of the North Pole with Admiral Peary and sees Tateh aboard a rag ship full of immigrants coming into Ellis Island.

🎵(spoken) You’re a brave man, whoever you are. Coming so far, expecting so much.

A salute to the man
On the deck of that ship!
A salute to the immigrant stranger.
Heaven knows why you’s make
Such a terrible trip.
May your own god protect you from danger.🎵

I just think it is a good reminder of the way we should view immigrants in this country (“Give me your tired, your poor”) and I don’t doubt that current views towards immigrants is one of the reasons that Lear deBessonet decided it was a good time for a Ragtime revival.

5. If you only have time for one song

The opening is like THE song from Ragtime but second is “Wheels of a Dream” where Coalhouse and Sarah sing to their son of their plans now that they are finally a family. Here’s a video from the revival that performed on Stephen Colbert’s show this week but I also recommend the original if you want to see a young Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell sing their faces off.

6. Concluding thoughts

The era of Ragtime had run out. Well I am off to listen to Taylor Swift’s new album on repeat for the weekend so journey on, Ragtime! I did check out the book from the library so I’m sure I’ll be listening to the original Broadway cast again shortly (and the revival cast when that recording comes out!).

Speaking of, I think my dream project would be publishing an annotated version of classic literature (Oliver Twist, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Ragtime, et cetera) and just having different sections highlighted to be like “this is what became XYZ lyric in the musical” or “this character is cut in the stage version, but you can see traits of them in this character”. I don’t know, just something to think about if there are any publishers out there who want to fund this project.