The Time Has Come for a Broadway Revival of ‘Rags’
Rags at the Goodspeed Theatre (Photo: Diane Sobolweski)
by Chris Peterson
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of Rags, the sweeping musical that opened and closed on Broadway in 1986 after just four performances. On paper, it had everything. Music by Charles Strouse(who sadly passed away last month). Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. A book by Joseph Stein. But the show arrived mid-chaos, burdened by rewrites and changes that never quite came together in time. Audiences never got the chance to discover what was buried inside. Critics saw its potential, but the moment slipped away.
Now in 2025, the moment has returned. And this time, we need Rags more than ever.
The story centers on Rebecca Hershkowitz, a Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York at the turn of the twentieth century with her son and a sense of hope. What she finds instead is exploitation, discrimination, and the messy contradictions of the American dream. Rebecca finds work in a Lower East Side sweatshop. She finds her voice in a labor movement. She finds herself between the life she left behind and the life she is trying to build. The show is about identity, resilience, and the fight for belonging. It is a musical about starting over, even when the odds are against you.
That is what makes Rags feel so immediate in 2025. We are once again having urgent conversations about immigration, labor rights, and who gets to be heard in this country. The working class is fighting for dignity. Women are still being told to stay quiet. Families are still being separated at borders. The machinery that grinds people down is not a thing of the past. Rags was written as a historical drama, but today it reads as a mirror.
In 2017, Rags was reimagined for a new generation at the Goodspeed Opera House. The production featured a new book by David Thompson, revised lyrics from Schwartz, and fresh orchestrations by Dan DeLange. It was a revelation. The Goodspeed version was met with critical praise, hailed as poignant, focused, and deeply moving. Audiences, which included me, praised its emotional depth and clarified narrative. Samantha Massell’s performance as Rebecca brought new dimension and warmth to a character who had always deserved center stage. What once felt messy and overstuffed now felt lean, urgent, and emotionally alive.
So why has it not returned to Broadway? In a moment when so many revivals feel like exercises in nostalgia, Rags offers something more. It is a chance to give a musical a second life because the world is finally ready to hear what it has to say. It is not a museum piece. It is a living, breathing story about hope in the face of hardship.
Next year(just like Ragtime) is the perfect time to bring Rags back. Not as a historical footnote. Not as a guilty pleasure for musical theatre completists. But as a fully realized, fully relevant, beautifully defiant Broadway revival. The material is ready. The audience is ready. The world is ready.
Let us not miss the moment again. Let us give Rags the second act it has always deserved.