Music By Stephen Flaherty

Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

Book by Terrence McNally

Directed by Frank Galati

Choreography by Graciela Daniele

Orchestrations by William David Brohn

"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"

Based on the best-selling novel by E.L. Doctorow, RAGTIME tells the story of three families of different cultural backgrounds whose lives become intertwined at the turn of the century.  Ahrens and Flaherty "auditioned", along with several other songwriting teams, for the chance to do the score for RAGTIME.  According to producer Garth Drabinsky, the tape Lynn & Stephen submitted was "transcendent", and three of the four songs on that original tape remain in the show today. The epic score contains everything from ragtime,(of course) to gospel to heartfelt ballads to catchy comic numbers.  Yet, as is true with all of Ahrens and Flaherty's work, EVERY song advances the story and reveals something about the characters. RAGTIME has finally put this talented  team "on the map," so to speak .  The show has been winning every award possible since its premiere in Toronto in December of 1996. The first American production of RAGTIME premiered in Los Angeles in June, 1997, and the show finally arrived on Broadway on January 18, 1998, opening the brand new Ford Center for the Performing Arts. On April 29th, 1998, the first National tour of Ragtime opened in Washington, DC .  RAGTIME was nominated for 13 1998 Tony Awards (the most of any show that season), and won 4, including one for the brilliant A&F score!!!!!

Sadly, RAGTIME closed on Broadway on January 16, 2000 after 861 performances. The national tour played throughout the U.S. through June of 2001, followed by a non-equity tour that also lasted a year. On October 26th, 2002, RAGTIME had its European premiere with a one-night only concert performance in Cardiff, Wales, starring many of the West End's biggest stars, most of whom went on to star in the acclaimed London production the following March. The rights for regional productions were recently released, and many of the country's most prestigious venues have been mounting the show. In June of 2005, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ, mounted the first US production utilizing the scaled down London staging.

Click to read a detailed plot summary

The  Original Broadway Cast

The Little Boy-- Alex Strange

Father-- Mark Jacoby

Mother-- Marin Mazzie

Younger Brother-- Steven Sutcliffe

Grandfather-- Conrad McLaren

Coalhouse Walker, Jr-- Brian Stokes Mitchell

Sarah-- Audra McDonald

Booker T. Washington-- Tommy Hollis

Tateh-- Peter Friedman

The Little Girl-- Lea Michele

Harry Houdini-- Jim Corti

Houdini's Mother-- Anne L. Nathan

J.P. Morgan -- Mike O'Carroll

Henry Ford-- Larry Daggett

Emma Goldman-- Judy Kaye

Evelyn Nesbit--Lynnette Perry

Stanford White-- Kevin Bogue

Harry K. Thaw-- Colton Green

Admiral Peary-- Rod Campbell

Matthew Henson-- Duane Martin Foster

Judge-- Mike O' Carroll

Foreman-- Conrad McLaren

Reporter-- Jeffrey Kuhn

Kathleen-- Anne Kanengeiser

Policeman -- Larry Daggett

Doctor-- Bruce Winant

Evil man -- Bruce Winant

Policeman-- Colton Green

Sarah's Friend-- Vanessa Townsell-Crisp

Trolley Conductor-- Gordon Stanley

Willie Conklin-- David Mucci

Foreman-- Jeffrey Kuhn

Brigit-- Anne L. Nathan

Conductor-- Joe Loccaro

Town Hall Bureaucrat-- Larry Daggett

2nd Bureaucrat-- Anne Kanengeiser

Clerk-- Jeffrey Kuhn

White Lawyer-- Bruce Winant

Black Lawyer-- Duane Martin Foster

Newsboys-- Joe Langworth, Colton Green, Jeffrey Kuhn

Reporters-- Rod Campbell, Gordon Stanley

Welfare Official-- Anne Kanengeiser

Baron's Assistant-- Anne L. Nathan

Gang Member-- Duane Martin Foster

Harlem Pas de Deux-- Monica L. Richards, Keith LaMelle Thomas

Charles. S. Whitman-- Gordon Stanley

Little Coalhouse-- Michael Redd, Shane Rogers

You can also view a list of major cast members from additional productions of Ragtime

The Songs

Disc One:

Disc Two:

Sounds

1) Ragtime ( the Company)

2) Gettin Ready Rag ( Brian Stokes Mitchell)

3) Night that Goldman Spoke at Union Square ( Stephen Sutcliffe)

Quotables

•  

• "Women bring a certain sensibility to a collaboration. In "Ragtime", I wrote for Mother 'Each day the maids trudge up the hill/the hired help arrives/ I never stopped to think they might have lives beyond our lives'. That's not in Doctorow. I created 'She was nothing to them, she was a woman, nothing and no one to them, so they beat her and beat her and beat her.' Sections like that aren't in the novel....I don't think a man would have written those lyrics." (Lynn Ahrens, Backstage Magazine, March 2000)
  

Interesting Facts

• The Drama League has produced a list of the Best Musicals of the Century.  RAGTIME tied for 18th!!!

• RAGTIME won 4 Tony Awards:  Best Score,  ( !!!!!!!) Best Book, Best Orchestrations, ( William David Brohn) and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Audra McDonald).
  
  

• The 3 songs that were originally submitted as part of the "audition" and remain in the show are "Ragtime,"Gliding," and "Til We Reach that Day."
  
  

• Many people may be surprised to hear that "Back to Before" was a "lyrics first" song. Lynn faxed it to Stephen early one morning, and that first draft remains the exact lyric that is in the show! At first, Stephen was at a loss as to how to approach it, because the sentences were so long, but after wrestling with it for a while and walking around the roof of his apartment building, he took his musical cues from Lynn's lyric, and the word "crossroad" in particular. He realized that Mother has come to a decision point in her journey, and at that moment, the song goes into a totally different key, and the chord used at that point, and the entire direction of the song, was inspired by that word. Also, in the rest of the score, Mother sings soprano, but when she gets to "Back to Before," she belts, so Stephen sums up the song as "A woman's journey to becoming a belter." Interestingly, the melody that Stephen came up with was completely different from what Lynn was hearing in her head as she wrote the lyric. She said she has never shared with him what her original musical impulse was.
  
  
• The Jewish immigrant music was the part of the RAGTIME score that was the most difficult for Stephen to write, partly because it was hard to find a fresh sound that didn't sound derivative of "Fiddler on the Roof". Garth Drabinsky kept telling Stephen that he wanted to "hear the shtetl!" He sent a fax that just had the word "balilika"!Stephen felt he owed it to try and find that sound. Ultimately, the song "Success" turned out to be a combination of the sounds of the shtetl and the sounds of the new America, which was a perfect blend for the character of Tateh.
  
  
  
• For the most part, RAGTIME was written chronologically, in that Terrence would write a scene, and then Stephen and Lynn would present their musical reactions to that scene, and then they would move on to the next scene. However, both "Our Children" and "Wheels of a Dream" were written before the book scenes were written, because they were just very obvious song moments.
  
  
• The song "He Wanted to Say" has been removed from the current tour of RAGTIME, because both Stephen and Lynn felt that even though they love the song, the second act had one too many "anthemy" numbers, and that there was no need to foucus on two secondary characters when the whole song can be summed up with "I know how to blow things up." They both have been chuckling over the fact that they are STILL rewriting RAGTIME.
  

• The PBS series "Great Performances" aired a special entitled "Creating RAGTIME" which was seen on most PBS stations on January 21, 1998.

Articles/Interviews

Paper Mill Playhouse Interview with Ahrens & Flaherty (June 2005)

Newark Star-Ledger Interview with Lynn Ahrens (May 2001)

Detroit Free Press Interview with Lynn Ahrens (March 2001)

 Houston Chronicle Interview (August 3, 1999)

 A profile of A&F from the Dallas Morning News (August 15, 1999)

 PBS Interview (January 1998)

"Ragtime to Riches" ( January 1998)

LA Times Interview (November 1997)

Reviews

Baltimore Sun Review ( March 2001)

Orlando Sun-Sentinel Review of "Ragtime" ( March 2000)

St. Petersburg Times Review of "Ragtime ( March 2000)  

 Pittsburgh Post -Gazette Review (October 27, 1999)

Houston Chronicle Review ( July 1999)

Houston Chronicle Review of Ragtime CD (June 1998)

LA Times Review (June 1997)

Buffalo News Review of "Ragtime" (December, 1996)

Program Notes

Ragtime Broadway Souvenir Program Notes

Major Awards / Nominations ( * indicates a win )

1998 Tony Award Nominations

1998 Drama Desk Nominations

1998 Grammy Award Nomination-- Best Original Cast Recording

1997 Los Angeles Ovation Award-- Best Musical

1997 Dora Mavor Moore Award-- Best Musical (Toronto)

  CD Information

Production Rights

Handled by Music Theatre International