Conspicuously AbsentĬhance Theater has staged a major musical each summer starting in 2001. Like This Free Civic News? Support Voice of OC Today. Doctorow’s 1975 novel) into a more compact, scaled-down staging poised to deliver the kind of intimacy for which the best Chance Theater stagings have long been heralded. Since the 99-seat Chance can’t hope to match that epic scale, it has reimagined “Ragtime” (scripted by Terrence McNally from E.L. staging, seen locally at the Shubert Theatre a year after the show’s 1996 world premiere in Toronto, sported elaborate trappings like a Model T that drove onto the stage. Just in time for Independence Day and the month of July comes a new staging, at Anaheim’s Chance Theater, of “Ragtime: The Musical,” that star-spangled paean to the promise, but also the social, racial and economic inequalities, of the Gilded Age as it crossed into a new century.īut this is no ordinary “Ragtime.” For decades, fans have come to new productions of the musical for the spectacle and glitz. Subscribe to Voice of OC's Free Newsletter The Morning Report Today. next Thursday and March 9 and 7 p.m.Subscribe for free! Wake Up Informed. Where: Roth/Resler Theater, Jewish Community Center, 1125 College Ave.Ĭontact: 61, Showtimes: 8 p.m. but you have to change to deal with the a glance “’Ragtime’ is about finding your own identity and community and celebrating the people who have broadened the diversity of America. “It’s so rare and rich to have a musical that gives you three different perspectives and three different stories,” Merrick said. Merrick compares the epic scope and melodic sweep of “Ragtime” to “Les Miserables.” As she learns to trust her own intuition, Mother starts to see that she can make her own choices.” “At the beginning, Mother is still very much tied to her husband, what he thinks and believes. “There’s so much depth to all the characters in the midst of history,” Merrick said. and adds a sense of history and dignity,” Ingram said. “The language is almost archaic, but it connects us to the time period. McNally wrote the dialogue with a distinctive point of view: third-person self-narration by each character. “It’s a visceral song about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Ingram said. “Wheels of a Dream,” a soaring duet between Coalhouse and Sarah, reflects themes of hope, change, and aspirations for a better life. “Now he wants to make things up to her by taking Sarah across the country and showing her what life could be like.” “He didn’t do everything he could to please her,” Ingram said. As the story evolves, it becomes a fight against an oppressive system.”Ĭoalhouse initially struggles to repair his relationship with Sarah, who left him. “Once he sets his mind on something, it takes a lot to make him change. “He’s very strong-willed, and he can be very stubborn,” said Ingram, 23. “You don’t even realize the fictional characters aren’t real, because they seamlessly intertwine with the historical figures,” Baghat said.Īmari Ingram plays Coalhouse, a musician. Interwoven into their stories are historical figures, from automaker Henry Ford and magician Harry Houdini to anarchist Emma Goldman and civil-rights activist Booker T. “There’s always a great underlying beat that’s like the heartbeat of the show.”Īmong the characters: a well-off white family whose members include Mother, Father and Mother’s Younger Brother Coalhouse Walker Jr., a black performer who loves Sarah, his estranged girlfriend and Tateh, an Eastern European Jew who comes to America with his young daughter. “It’s a sweeping epic, with a score that’s one of the best-written for theater in the last 25 years,” Bahgat said. “America is much different than we were in 1906, but the themes of ‘Ragtime’ - immigration, racial barriers between blacks and whites, women finding their voice - are still present today."Īuthor Terrence McNally, lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty adapted the musical - winner of four 1997 Tony awards, including best book and score - from E.L. “We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go,” director David Baghat said. Gallery Players’ production - with a 32-member cast and a nine-piece orchestra - will open Saturday at the Jewish Community Center. That’s the focus of “Ragtime,” a 1998 Broadway show set in the early 1900s in New York. Americans struggling with change just a few years into a new century seems like a timely theme for a musical.
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