![]() Though created on a smaller scale, Pomerantz's production doesn't compromise the integrity of the piece: He removes the gargantuan nature of everything but the emotions and simply has his cast tell the story, which is pretty much all you need. Along the way, they cross paths with Tateh (Zachary Prince) and his daughter (Sonnie Betts), Jewish immigrants recently arrived from Latvia on a quest to obtain their American dream, and real-life figures like anarchist rabblerouser Emma Goldman (Victoria Huston-Elm), performer Evelyn Nesbit (Cathryn Wake), and escapologist Harry Houdini.ĭerrick Davis and Kyrie Courter as Coalhouse and Sarah in Ragtime at the Bay Street Theater (Derrik Davis), who arrives like clockwork every Sunday bearing flowers, and faces the same racist behaviors from the local volunteer firemen week after week. Sarah is being courted by the baby's father, Harlem pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. At the center are Mother (Lora Lee Gayer), a wealthy, white New Rochelle matriarch who takes in Sarah (Kyrie Courter), a young Black woman, and her newborn son. Weaving together the stories of three very different families at the turn of the 20th century, Ragtime feels almost prescient in its depictions of racial and economic warfare, an unfortunate reminder that history repeats. And it ranges from "merely wonderful" to "absolutely amazing." There's one single set (by Anna Louizos) - a dusty old attic, perhaps in that house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue Hill in New Rochelle - a smattering of period costumes (by Hunter Kaczorowski), and a handful of projections (by Brian C. There are only 18 actors in the company, often doubling, tripling, and quadrupling in roles. If director Will Pomerantz's take on Ragtime at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, is any indication, the answer is a resounding Yes. But can you do this show in a more economical way and have the impact remain the same? Doctorow wrote a sprawling novel, and, in turn, Terrence McNally (book), Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), and Stephen Flaherty (music), wrote an expansive musical. Even the 2009 revival, which was considerably "scaled down," had a cast of 40. The original Broadway production, often a defining model for how a show is presented, had a cast that numbered nearly 60, with an orchestra of more than two dozen. ![]() ![]() The fallacy of Ragtime is that you must go big. ![]()
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