As is usual for our process, the opening number was both the first and last thing we wrote, as we kept folding new musical ideas and themes into it as the rest of the show developed. (This first song, by the way, was “music-first.”) Our orchestrator, Bill Brohn, was so taken with the notion of starting such a large production with only a solo piano, that he kept my original piano arrangement for the entire beginning until the ensemble vocals enter. There seemed to be no other possibilities for life than those delineated by his music.” This was a recipe for what the music should sound like. Doctorow’s novel: “Small, clear chords hung in the air like flowers. In it, Terrence quoted a beautiful passage from E.L. The inspiration for the notes of the opening piano theme came to me while reading Terrence’s 60-page treatment, which was given to us by our producer, Garth Drabinsky, as the basis for writing these early songs. “Prologue: Ragtime” Stephen Flaherty: This was one of the first four songs Lynn and I wrote on spec as our “audition” to write the score of Ragtime. Ragtime: The Musical – Original Broadway Cast Recoding Disc 1 A portrait of America in the early 20th century through the eyes of three disparate communities (wealthy white New Rochellians, the black community of Harlem, and immigrants of the Lower East Side), here is a look inside the making of Ragtime. Nominated for 12 Tony Awards, Ragtime took home trophies for Best Book of a Musical for McNally, Best Original score for Ahrens and Flaherty, Best Featured Actress for Audra McDonald, and Best Orchestrations for William David Brohn. The musical with a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens played there for two years, but has lived on as a beacon of the musical theatre canon.
Doctorow, Ragtime began Broadway performances December 26, 1997, and officially opened January 18, 1998, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts (now the Lyric Theatre). Doctorow, lyricist Lynn Ahrens, director Frank Galati.īased on the novel by E.L. From left: producer Garth Drabinsky, choreographer Graciela Daniele, Flaherty, librettist Terrence McNally, author E.L. The Ragtime team, with composer Stephen Flaherty front and center. And what will the world be like now, without him? Nothing will ever be the same.” – Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty We can’t imagine the theater without him. His intelligence and love for all things musical and theatrical hum through every inch of Ragtime. We wrote three shows together, arguing and laughing over every line, lyric, and note, drinking a lot of coffee and talking about life and theatre and family. Terrence was generous, brilliant, funny, cantankerous, filled with emotion and heart to the brim. We never dreamed that a few days later, on March 24, we would lose our beloved friend and collaborator Terrence McNally to complications associated with the COVID-19 virus. The world actually had spun off its axis, but at least we could still write something together. “When we agreed to write this track-by-track analysis of Ragtime, we thought it would be a diversion from our current states of isolation. We will miss each other but the world will stay the same.” – Terrence McNally, Ragtime The Tony-winning score is just as diverse as the melting pot of America itself, drawing upon many musical styles, from the ragtime rhythms of Harlem and Tin Pan Alley to the klezmer of the Lower East Side, from bold brass band marches to delicate waltzes, from up-tempo banjo tunes to period parlor songs and expansive anthems.“Nothing much happens in a year. Together, they confront history's timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair. Set in the volatile melting pot of turn-of-the-century New York, three distinctly American tales are woven together – that of a stifled upper-class wife, a determined Jewish immigrant and a daring young Harlem musician – united by their courage, compassion and belief in the promise of the future. Called by TIME Magazine "A triumph for the stage," and by the International Herald Tribune "the best musical in twenty years," this acclaimed musical is filled with pageantry, emotion and hope, bursting onto the stage like no other musical.Īt the dawn of a new century, everything is changing. Doctorow's distinguished novel, Ragtime is the winner of the 1998 Tony Awards for Best Score, Book and Orchestrations, and both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score. Written by the award-winning composer/lyricist team of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens ( Once on This Island, Seussical and Lucky Stiff), noted playwright Terrence McNally, and based on E.L.
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