AWARDS

1998 Tony Awards

• WINNER Best Book of a Musical
• WINNER Best Original Musical Score
• WINNER Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Audra McDonald
• WINNER Best Orchestrations
• Nominee Best Musical
• Nominee Best Actor in a Musical – Peter Friedman
• Nominee Best Actor in a Musical – Brian Stokes Mitchell
• Nominee Best Actress in a Musical – Marin Mazzie
• Nominee Best Scenic Design
• Nominee Best Costume Design
• Nominee Best Lighting Design
• Nominee Best Choreography
• Nominee Best Direction of a Musical

1998 Drama Desk Awards

• WINNER Outstanding New Musical
• WINNER Outstanding Book of a Musical
• WINNER Outstanding Music
• WINNER Outstanding Lyrics
• WINNER Outstanding Orchestrations
• Nominee Outstanding Actor in a Musical – Peter Friedman
• Nominee Outstanding Actor in a Musical – Brian Stokes Mitchell
• Nominee Outstanding Actress in a Musical – Marin Mazzie
• Nominee Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical – Steven Sutcliffe
• Nominee Outstanding Choreography
• Nominee Outstanding Direction of a Musical
• Nominee Outstanding Set Design of a Musical
• Nominee Outstanding Costume Design
• Nominee Outstanding Lighting Design

1998 Theatre World Awards

• WINNER  Steven Sutcliffe

1998 Drama League Awards

• WINNER Distinguished Production of a Musical
• WINNER Outstanding New Broadway Musical

1998 New York Drama Critics Circle Awards

• WINNER Best Musical

1998 Outer Critics Circle Awards

• WINNER Outstanding New Broadway Musical Winner
• Nominee Outstanding Director Of A Musical – Frank Galati
• Nominee Outstanding Costume Design – Santo Loquasto
• Nominee Outstanding Choreography – Graciela Daniele
• Nominee Outstanding Actress In A Musical – Marin Mazzie
• Nominee Outstanding Actor In A Musical – Brian Stokes Mitchell
• WINNER Outstanding Featured Actor In A Musical – Peter Friedman
• Nominee Outstanding Lighting Design – Jules Fisher & Peggy Eisenhauer
• Nominee Outstanding Featured Actress In A Musical – Audra Mcdonald
• Nominee Outstanding Set Design – Eugene Lee

MUSICAL NUMBERS

Act One:

• “Ragtime” (Company);
• “Goodbye, My Love” (Marin Mazzie);
• “Journey On” (Mark Jacoby, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman);
• “The Crime of the Century” (Lynnette Perry, Steven Sutcliffe, Ensemble);
• “What Kind of Woman” (Marin Mazzie);
• “A Shtetl iz Amerike” (Peter Friedman, Lea Michele, Immigrants);
• “Success” (Peter Friedman, Mike O’Carroll, Jim Corti, Ensemble);
• “Gettin’ Ready Rag” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble);
• “Henry Ford” (Larry Daggett, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble);
• “Nothing Like the City” (Peter Friedman, Marin Mazzie, Alex Strange, Lea Michele);
• “Your Daddy’s Son” (Audra McDonald);
• “New Music” (Mark Jacoby, Marin Mazzie, Steven Sutcliffe, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Ensemble);
• “Wheels of a Dream” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald);
• “The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square” (Steven Sutcliffe, Judy Kaye, Ensemble);
• “Lawrence, Massachusetts” (Ensemble);
• “Gliding” (Peter Friedman);
• “Justice” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble);
• “President” (Audra McDonald);
• “Till We Reach That Day” (Vanessa Townsell-Crisp, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Judy Kaye, Steven Sutcliffe, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman, Ensemble)

Act Two:

• “Henry Houdini, Master Escapist” (Alex Strange, Jim Corti);
• “Coalhouse’s Soliloquy” (Brian Stokes Mitchell);
• “Coalhouse Demands” (Ensemble);
• “What a Game!” (Mark Jacoby, Alex Strange, Ensemble);
• “Atlantic City” (Lynnette Perry, Jim Corti);
• “New Music” (reprise) (Mark Jacoby);
• “Atlantic City” (Part Two) (Ensemble);
• “The Crime of the Century” (reprise) (Lynnette Perry);
• “Henry Houdini, Master Escapist” (reprise) (Jim Corti);
• “Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.” (Peter Friedman);
• “Our Children” (Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman);
• “Sarah Brown Eyes” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald);
• “He Wanted to Say” (Judy Kaye, Steven Sutcliffe, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Coalhouse’s Men);
• “Back to Before” (Marin Mazzie);
• “Look What You’ve Done” (Tommy Hollis, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Coalhouse’s Men);
• “Make Them Hear You” (Brian Stokes Mitchell);
• “Ragtime” (reprise)
• “Wheels of a Dream” (reprise) (Company)

KEY HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

Many of the characters in Ragtime are real people who lived during the turn of the twentieth century:

EVELYN NESBIT
Evelyn Nesbit lived from 1884-1967. She was known as the ‘Girl on the Red Velvet Swing.’ Although she was a model and chorus girl in show business since she was a young, her career really took off after her marriage to Harry Kendall Thaw when she was twenty. Just two years into her abusive marriage, her husband killed an old family friend who had sexually taken advantage of Nesbit when she was a young teenager. After this, she received a reputation as a “lethal beauty” and continue do onto a successful career, but was ultimately unhappy. She attempted suicide in 1926, which led to her steady public downfall. Ragtime plays on the public perception of Nesbit to fuel her character.

HARRY KENDALL THAW
Harry K. Thaw lived from 1871-1947. He was the husband of Evelyn Nesbit before their divorce while he was in an asylum. He was known to be incredibly violent his whole life, and the violence did not stop when he was pursuing and married to Nesbit. Thaw was born to a very wealthy family, which is how he was able to get by in life and maintain the lifestyle he did. When he shot and killed Stanford White, Thaw’s mother made it such that he would not go to prison, but instead have a comfortable stay at an asylum where he was treated like royalty.

STANFORD WHITE
Stanford White lived from 1853-1906. He was a famous architect. He was a family friend of the Nesbits and served as a mentor to Evelyn Nesbit. After raping Evelyn when she was a young teenager, he remained a friend of the family. Nesbit married Harry K. Thaw a few years later. Not soon into their marriage on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, White and Thaw crossed paths, and Thaw shot White four times, killing him.

HENRY FORD
Henry Ford lived from 1863-1947. He is well known for creating the first Ford Model T automobile. He is also famous for the assembly line. The assembly line cut down the tasks workers had to do, creating more jobs, and cutting down the overall manufacturing time of the automobile. Ford was strongly anti-war and believed in peace and pacifism. Despite this, Ford was anti-Semitic, meaning he was prejudiced toward Jews.

J.P. MORGAN
J.P. Morgan lived from 1837-1913. He started off his career as an accountant and later became a partner in the firm Drexel, Morgan and Company. Today, his name is associated with banking and an avant garde lifestyle. He is also known for reorganizing and revitalizing the railroad industry in the US at the turn of the 20th century. His company held a monopoly over many financial institutions in the country until his death.

HARRY HOUDINI
Harry Houdini lived from 1874- 1926. Born Ehrich Weisz, Houdini was a Hungarian immigrant and illusionist. He moved to the United States with his family when he was just two years old. He quickly rose to fame after being able to evade handcuffs and jail. He did not maintain his health and, after inviting university student, J. Gordon Whitehead, to punch his abdomen, her died of peritonitis, or an inflammation of the abdominal lining. In Ragtime, Houdini represents the possibility of immigrant success for Tateh.

EMMA GOLDMAN
Emma Goldman lived from 1869- 1940. She was a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant, much like Ragtime’s Tateh. She was a strong proponent for freedom of expression, education and sexual freedom for women, and workers’ unions. She is seen as a political anarchist, constantly pushing against repressive societal norms.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Booker T. Washington lived from 1856-1915. He was the founder of what is now known as Tuskegee University. He was one of the most influential spokespersons for African Americans at the time. Though born a slave, he and his family moved after the abolition of slavery, and he worked as a janitor in order to pay for schooling. He believed that African Americans should focus less on trying to get equal social and political rights, and more on educating themselves so they could uplift their family financially, which, in turn, would lead to the rights for which they were currently fighting. Washington’s ideals of what the Black man should work toward is in direct contrast with what Ragtime’s Coalhouse believed was more important.

CHARLES WHITMAN
Charles Whitman lived from 1968- 1947. He served as the 41st governor of New York from 1915- 1918. In Ragtime, he is not yet the governor. He is the State District Attorney. Later in his life, he served as President of the American Bar Association. JACOB RIIS Jacob Riis lived from 1849-1914. He was a Danish immigrant who came to America in 1870. Riis is most famously known for his book, How the Other Half Lives. His book branded him a social reformer because he did not shy away from the living conditions that low income families faced in New York. The book is filled with photos by Riis, which were hard to look at and hard to ignore.

SIGMUND FREUD
Sigmund Freud lived from 1856- 1939. He was an Austrian psychiatrist and philosopher. He is known for being the forerunner of psychoanalysis, which attempts to unpack the deeper meanings behind patients’ dreams and subconscious. The ‘id,’ ‘ego,’ and ‘superego’ and the Oedipus and Electra Complexes are all Freudian theories!

SYNOPSIS

Act One

It’s New York City at the turn of the 20th century and three different communities welcome the audience to their world. First, an upper-class white family from the wealthy suburb of New Rochelle: Mother, Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, Grandfather, and the Little Boy, Edgar.

Next, in Harlem, is the African-American community, where the beautiful Sarah enjoys the new music of Coalhouse Walker, Jr. Lastly, Jewish immigrants moving into the tenements of the Lower East Side find their home, namely artist Tateh from Latvia and his young daughter. The only connections these communities have to each other are the celebrities they all know and read about: businessmen J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford, activists Booker T. Washington and Emma Goldman, and entertainers Harry Houdini and Evelyn Nesbit, who became a star when her lover murdered her wealthy husband.

Mother and Father say goodbye as he leaves on an expedition to the North Pole, leaving Mother alone for the first time in her life. His ship passes Tateh’s: Father thinks about how the immigrants “don’t have a chance” in his country, Tateh wonders why anyone would leave America.

Mother’s Younger Brother is always trying to find his passion, and for now it’s Evelyn Nesbit. He watches her perform and professes his love for her. She kisses him for the attention of the press, but doesn’t really have any interest in him.

After finding an African-American baby in her garden, Mother invites the child’s mother, Sarah, into the Family home, claiming responsibility for them, even though she knows her husband would not approve.

Immigrants arrive at Ellis Island, and Tateh tries to make a living selling drawings on a cart on the street corner. As his Little Girl becomes sick, Tateh becomes desperate for money. When a wealthy stranger offers to buy her from him, Tateh is angered and becomes disgusted in his new country. He thinks of the success immigrant Harry Houdini, and Tateh decides to sell his cart and try his luck somewhere else.

Coalhouse introduces his new music, called ragtime, and sings lovingly about Sarah, whom he can’t find after he broke her heart. When he learns she’s in New Rochelle, he comes up with a plan to win her back, starting with a visit to the Ford Factory to buy the new Model T.

On his way to Sarah, Coalhouse is accosted by a volunteer fire squad who are angered by the site of a black man driving his own car. At the same time, Sarah thinks about how her heartbreak and fear led to the baby in her arms. Coalhouse finally makes it to the Family house and is shocked to learn he has a son. Though Sarah turns him down at first, he persists courting her, eventually leading to Mother inviting him inside. Coalhouse tells her about his plans to support his family playing ragtime, and Sarah and he reunite.

Mother, Younger Brother, Sarah, and Coalhouse have formed a tight-knit bond, which upsets Father as he comes home. Father grapples how much he has missed and how unsure he is of the changing world. Coalhouse and Sarah are inspired by the words of activist Booker T. Washington and dream of a great life for their son.

In a Worker’s Hall, Emma Goldman rallies the group, talking about the textile mills in Massachusetts, where the workers’ strike against their working conditions has turned violent. Tateh, who was working there, escapes with Little Girl, showing her a flipbook of moving images he invented to calm her down. When the train conductor sees it and buys it from him, Tateh realizes he’s invented a product people will buy.

In New Rochelle, Coalhouse and Sarah are stopped by the volunteer fire squad again. When Coalhouse refuses to give them the money they demand, the group destroys Coalhouse’s Model T and rolls it into the lake. When Coalhouse is not able to find comfort in the justice system, Sarah goes to a campaign rally to convince the Vice Presidential candidate to help them. As she approaches him, J.P. Morgan mistakes her for an assassin, and she’s beaten to death by Secret Service. As she’s buried, people wonder when every American will truly have equality.

Act Two

In a dream sequence, The Little Boy watches Harry Houdini escape a dynamite-covered box. When he wakes from his nightmare, he warns Mother something bad will happen.

Following Sarah’s death, Coalhouse decides to take matters into his own hands and pursue his own justice. He kills several fireman and bombs the volunteer fire house, but Booker T. Washington condemns his actions. Still, other young angry men think Coalhouse has the right idea and support him. Father is frustrated at Mother for making them the center of the Coalhouse scandal, since they still have custody of Sarah and the baby. Mother is upset and urges Father to talk to their son about what is going on, but he is too horrified by all the immigrants suddenly surrounding him in their world to do so.

Father moves the family to Atlantic City to get away from the chaos in New York. As they walk along the boardwalk, they see Tateh directing a film crew under the name “Baron Ashkenazy:” he has since reinvented himself as a movie director. Atlantic City is full of Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Houdini, and other celebrities who are in the down spiral of their careers. As The Little Boy and The Little Girl become friends, so do Mother and Tateh.

In New York, Coalhouse and his followers, including Mother’s Younger Brother, threaten to blow up J.P. Morgan’s library. Father leaves Atlantic City, having been called in to help reason with Coalhouse, and promises Mother all will be back to normal soon. Mother knows it won’t. Booker T. Washington convinces Coalhouse not to blow up the building, reminding him of the legacy he would be leaving for his son. In the end, Coalhouse tells the group that it’s not violence that will make a difference, but words and the power of each of them sharing their story. As Coalhouse and Father make up, Coalhouse leaves the library and is immediately killed by police.

The Little Boy decides to fulfill Coalhouse’s dream to make sure each of their voices are heard. The play ends with each of the characters telling their stories and what happens in their future, all as America becomes more of a melting pot each day.

Ragtime shepherd Marty Bell, at the time Senior VP, Creative Affairs of Livent is the man who brought the idea of Ragtime to Garth Drabinsky at Livent. For the historical record, here are his fascinating notes on development of the show…