Listen to the song using one of the links below. Call 62 or visit Follow Jackalope Ranch on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.After watching you may ask students to narrate what they recall from the video. Ragtime continues through Sunday, November 17, at 8355 West Peoria Avenue in Peoria. This Ragtime begins then, when Wolter confronts Zimmerer in a stunning non-musical moment filled with, as Doctorow wrote in his novel, "texture, moods, character, despair."įrom there, it's all uphill for this Ragtime, which crosses that usually uncrossable bridge between history lesson and musical theater, leaving us well entertained and perhaps even a little enlightened. And although that live orchestra sounded sometimes sluggish, it was perhaps because someone - maybe musical director Steve Hilderbrand - has adapted the original Broadway arrangements, written for belters like Audra McDonald, who originated the role of Sarah, for more subtle singers.įazio's production commences neatly, but really gets going about halfway through Act One, when Father returns home from a long journey to discover black people living - and playing ragtime music - in his home. Wedged between their stories are non-stop references to game-changing historical figures: showgirl Evelyn Nesbit radical Emma Goldman industry tycoon Henry Ford.īoth high-minded and elegantly somber, the music and lyrics are never preachy about America's less-glorious early days. Both cross paths with Tateh (Tony Bolsser) and his daughter (Morgan Goldberg), Russian immigrants who come here to better themselves. (Miguel Jackson, in a star turn), is a Harlem piano player whose presence is a challenge to both families. The infant's mother is an unmarried maid named Sarah (Krystal Pope) his father, Coalhouse Walker, Jr. Its story of America is told by three families: Father (Matt Zimmerer), Mother (Sarah Wolter), Mother's Younger Brother (local favorite John Haubner) and her Little Boy (an engaging Emilio Cress) whose complacent life in New Rochelle, N.Y., is upturned when Mother finds an abandoned black baby in her garden. The tragic drama behind Ragtime's stories seem apocryphal but, are, for the most part, true. Its current publication, known officially as Ragtime Version 2, is a pared-down, less bombastic edition that allows its players to shine. Its original Broadway production, subsequent road companies and a later New York remount were all of mammoth scale, with vintage automobiles and a full-size locomotive dwarfing the stage and often trumping its performers and its lovely score. Doctorow's 1975 novel, Ragtime offers a panoramic sweep of America just after the turn of the last century. This well-crafted production of Terrence McNally's musical about the reshaping of America in the early 20th century surprised me with its more ample qualities: A live orchestra, rather than the prerecorded tracks that many smaller companies use these days some innovative choreography from director Phillip Fazio and a harmonious ensemble cast with a couple of real standouts.Īdapted from E.L. See also: Actors Theatre Returns with A Steady Rain, and It's a Good Thingīut I went - fortunately. A community theater production of Ragtime. "I've just seen the most perfect production of Ragtime," she said. An old friend who knows theater phoned me last week.
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