Ragtime, The Musical

This epic new musical by the award-winning composer/lyricist team Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens paints a nostalgic and powerful portrait of life in turn of the century America. Based on E.L. Doctorow’s distinguished novel, Ragtime, The Musical intertwines three distinct stories that poignantly illustrate history’s timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, and love and hate.

Flaherty’s score is just as diverse as the Melting Pot of America that it seeks to recreate. It draws upon traditional Jewish folk sounds to color the haunting music of the immigrants, Vaudeville’s outrageous style to capture the spectacle of Evelyn Nesbit, and Joplin and Jazz to invoke the enlivened spirit of Harlem. With a book by Terrance McNally, this 1998 Tony award winning show for best score, book, and orchestrations, features such show stopping songs as “Getting Ready Rag,” “Your Daddy’s Son,” “Wheels of a Dream,” “Till We Reach That Day,” “Back To Before,” and “Make Them Hear You.”