Ragtime is Returning to Broadway, and Not a Moment Too Soon

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

Finally.

After fifteen years, Ragtime is coming back to Broadway—and I don’t say this lightly—it’s about damn time.

Lincoln Center Theater is reviving one of the most emotionally rich, musically powerful, and politically urgent musicals ever written, with previews beginning September 26 and opening night set for October 16 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. It’ll run for just 14 weeks, and if you’ve got a pulse, you’d better already be setting your ticket alert.

This will mark Ragtime’s first return to Broadway since its 2009 revival, which was heartbreakingly short-lived, shuttering after only 65 performances. That version was, by all accounts, beautifully acted and lovingly staged—but it didn’t have the momentum, or frankly, the audience, it needed. But if there were ever a time for Ragtime to come roaring back, it’s now.

Why? Because Ragtime tells the American story—messy, imperfect, and aching with the tension between who we are and who we want to be. Terrence McNally’s book (based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel) and the soul-stirring score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens manage to feel both timeless and ripped from today’s headlines.

Three families—Black, white, and immigrant—intersect in early 1900s New York, just as America is industrializing, innovating, and seething with injustice. And while the setting is the past, the mirror it holds up couldn’t feel more current.

Racial violence. Police brutality. The immigrant experience. Economic inequality. The illusion—and cost—of the American Dream. Ragtime is a musical that dares to ask: who gets to write history? And what does progress actually look like?

So when I say this isn’t just another revival, I mean it. This is a reclamation.

And the cast? Let’s talk about this cast.

Lear deBessonet, who directed last fall’s one-night-only gala staging at New York City Center, is back at the helm. And yes, the same powerhouse leads from that gala are returning: Joshua Henry (the definition of presence) as Coalhouse Walker Jr., Caissie Levy (a vocal force of nature) as Mother, and Brandon Uranowitz (forever versatile) as Tateh. The gala was, to put it mildly, a sensation. Audience members described it as transcendent, devastating, galvanizing—everything musical theatre at its best can be.

To see these actors step back into these roles for a full run is a gift.

No word on the rest of the cast yet, but I’m crossing my fingers that some of the folks from the City Center performance will be in this as well, including Colin Donnell(Father), Ben Levi Ross(Younger Brother, Shaina Taub(Emma Goldman) and Joy Woods(Sarah).

There are musicals that entertain. There are musicals that challenge. Ragtime is one of the rare few that do both—and leave you different than you were before.

And let’s be honest: Broadway needs this show right now. Not just because it’s beautifully written (it is), or because it has one of the most thrilling Act I finales ever staged (it does), but because it dares to confront who we are.

We’re living in a moment of book bans, rising hate crimes, deep divisions, and a whole lot of noise. Ragtime doesn’t flinch from the ugliness, but it also refuses to give up on hope. It believes that art can heal, that change is possible, and that music can still move us toward something better.

So yes, I’m celebrating this revival. I’m celebrating it loud. Because fifteen years was too long to wait.

But now that it’s back? Let the wheels of the train turn again. Let the music swell. Let the stories unfold.

And let Ragtime remind us, as only great theatre can, who we are—and who we still might become.

See you at the Beaumont.