Lyricist turns "Ragtime" into a musical

March 25, 2001

By Martin F. Kohn

Detroit Free Press Theater Critic

 

Initially, lyricist Lynn Ahrens wasn't sure about "Ragtime."

She'd read E.L. Doctorow's book when it came out, in 1975. "It's one of my favorite novels," she says. And she'd written musicals with her collaborator, composer Stephen Flaherty ("Seussical" is their current Broadway musical).

But she had reservations about writing lyrics for a Broadway musical based on "Ragtime."

The novel presented certain challenges. Set a century ago, it has no central character or plot. Its overlapping stories involve wholly invented characters who interact with each other and with real people of the era: J.P. Morgan, Booker T. Washington, Houdini, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford.

Not much of it was captured by the 1981 movie version, and the movie didn't have to stop every few minutes to let somebody sing.

The musical was Canadian producer Garth Drabinsky's idea.

"He was very interested in doing large-scale, epic American musicals, " Ahrens says, and optioned the stage rights from Doctorow in 1993.

Doctorow, who retained the right to approve the incipient show's writers, "didn't really know anybody in musical theater," she recalls. So a competition was held for songwriters "to hear how different people would approach the material'

Ahrens and Flaherty, whose biggest previous success had been the 1990 "Once On This Island," made their pitch, but the decision to go for it wasn't easy.

"My tendency and Stephen Flaherty's tendency are always diametrically opposed, " Ahrens says. "Stephen was like, 'OK, we have to this! We have to win this! This is the greatest opportunity in the whole world!' And I was like, 'I don't know,' " Ahrens says, affecting an unnaturally meek, small voice.

"And my husband was saying: 'Are you crazy! You have to try to do this!'"

Score one for spousal influence.

So Ahrens and Flaherty "submitted four songs, as did a number of other people. I never knew who the other people were; I didn't want to know that."

Not only did they win the assignment, they already had some of the work out of the way: Three of the four songs they submitted remained in the show.

A fourth was written for a plot line that was eventually discarded by "Ragtime" playwright Terrence McNally. The lost song might show up someday in Ahrens and Flaherty's cabaret act, assuming they ever put one together, Ahrens says.