The dawn of the 20th century was a tumultuous time in America.
It was four decades after the Civil War and the end of slavery, but African-Americans were navigating the injustices and indignities of second-class citizenship even as they created vibrant culture in places like Harlem during what became known as the Jazz Age.
Women were coming out of the kitchen to fight for the right to vote, which they would finally win with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Large waves of immigrants arrived on U.S. shores, some fleeing persecution, all in search of the American Dream.
With threads from those social movements, the musical “Ragtime” weaves the lives of fictional and non-fictional characters into a uniquely American tapestry. The result is a play that is both grand and personal.
It’s also timely, says Dennis Razze, chairman of the DeSales University Theatre Department, who is directing “Ragtime” to kick off the summer’s Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival on campus.
“America was going through a lot of stresses and strains because of very much the same things we’re dealing with in this moment in time,” Razze says. “Racial injustice, immigration, women’s rights, all the same issues that we’re contending with still in this country.”
The show is based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel of the same name, which incorporated some characters that were prominent people of the period such as magician Harry Houdini, radical Emma Goldman, model and celebrity Evelyn Nesbit, architect Stanford White and educator and civil rights activist Booker T. Washington.
But the main characters with three intersecting stories are fictional — a black ragtime musician named Coalhouse Walker Jr. and his love interest, Sarah; a white upper-crust New Rochelle, N.Y. family that includes Mother, Father, their son Little Boy and Mother’s Younger Brother, and Jewish immigrants from Latvia, Tateh and Little Girl.
Razze says casting such a large show — the production has 39 actors — was a huge endeavor that took from January through April.
“There are theaters around the country doing cut-down productions of it with small casts, but to be really truthful to the scope of the story it needs to be of a certain magnitude,” he says. “It’s covering vast historical and societal change.”
With those sweeping changes also comes spectacles, including Harry Houdini’s character, played by Freddie Kimmel, who does the trick of getting out of a straight jacket while hanging upside down.
“I find myself in rehearsal every night staging massive protesting, ocean liners leaving a dock with huge crowds on the shore, political rallies, a funeral that involves a whole section of downtown New York,” Razze says. “The scope is large and cinematic, so it’s really challenging me as a director in terms of how to tell a story clearly that has so much complexity in it.”
It has also meant finding the right voices to do justice to Stephen Flaherty’s score. The show premiered on Broadway in 1998, garnering 13 Tony nominations and winning best book, best score, best orchestration and best featured actress in a musical for Audra McDonald.
“I think it’s one of the best musical scores that has been written in the last 25 years,” Razze says. “I like to say it’s an embarrassment of riches because there are so many good songs in it that will stick with you. And they’re all based around the style of ragtime music.”
Ragtime music enjoyed a revival in the early 1970s after the blockbuster movie “The Sting” (starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford) used Scott Joplin’s songs such as “The Entertainer” and “Maple Leaf Rag” in its score.
The songs in “Ragtime” the musical go beyond tunes from a film soundtrack.
“We hear every style of ragtime music, from wonderful dances to hymns to soaring anthems to plaintive lullabies,” Razze says. “It’s all based on ragtime style. When Doctorow wrote the title for the novel, I think he was thinking about that music epitomizing that era of massive societal change.”
Key for the production was casting the leading role of ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. Razze says the show auditioned at least 15 actors in New York City before casting Nkrumah Gatling, who performed on Broadway as understudy for the character, John, in the 2017 revival of “Miss Saigon.” Gatling has also performed in national tours of “Porgy and Bess” and “Hair.”
Razze says Gatling has “a spectacular voice” and is riveting in the role of Walker.
“He has such intensity and such a sense of sophistication and nobility, which I think is so important for the role of Coalhouse because the suffering that he endures in the show is tragic,” Razze says. “So you need an actor who can bear that weight and who we can really identify with, and Nkrumah is that actor.”
Gatling, who is originally from Houston, and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, agrees with Razze that the themes of “Ragtime” still resonate.
“Everything in the news right now is represented in this show,” he says. “From police brutality to racism to the immigrants coming into the country and how people accept immigrants in this country to the disillusionment of the wealthy people that lived in America.
“As we see nowadays, you can’t live in a closed world anymore. It very much comes across in the show that these people can’t live in their pristine home and ignore what is happening around them.”
Still, “Ragtime” is no simplistic diatribe.
“At the end of the show you’re left with hope, hope for the future,” Gatling says.
The music is challenging but gorgeous and the production has an abundance of show-stoppers, he says.
A Model T Ford is important to the plot; the festival rented a real Model T. Walker and his love interest Sarah sing a song called “Wheels of a Dream” in which the car represents their hopes for the future.
“I always say it’s a character in the show,” Gatling says. “Everything happens because of that car. It’s a catalyst for the story.”
Actress Brandi Burkhardt plays another fictional lead who the audience only knows as Mother, the matriarch of the wealthy white New York family.
Razze was excited to learn from the production’s New York casting director that Burkhardt was interested in the role. She starred on Broadway in the leading role of Lucie Manette in “A Tale of Two Cities,” which she reprised in London and for PBS.
She also played Sophie in “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway. Her television credits include guest star spots on “NCIS”, “How I Met Your Mother,” “Mad Men,” “Boston Legal” and “Law & Order SVU.”
“I had heard recordings of her sing and just loved her voice,” Razze says. “She sent us a video of Mother’s songs from Los Angeles where she lives and we knew she was our Mother.”
Other actors include Samuel Druhora (Tateh), who has performed leading roles in theater abroad, including as Jean Valjean in a production of “Les Miserables”; Destinee Rea (Sarah), who was in the cast of Broadway’s “Amelie;” and Bryant Martin (Father) who has television and theater credits, which include the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Michele Ragusa, who plays Emma Goldman, performed in the original Broadway production of “Ragtime” in 1998 and appeared in Broadway’s “Young Frankenstein,” “Titanic” and the national tour of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Longtime PSF collaborator Stephen Casey is choreographing the show, which includes a couple of huge dance numbers, including a wild dance scene at a Harlem jazz club and another with couples promenading at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.
The costumes are the original designs created by theater and film designer Santo Loquasto, a Wilkes Barre native who grew up in Easton. Loquasto won his fourth Tony Award last year for Best Costume Design of a Musical for “Hello Dolly!”
“There are literally several hundred costumes,” Razze says. “Each cast member wears between five and 10 costumes in the course of the show.”
“Ragtime” is a patriotic musical, Razze says, but one that delves into the complexity of American history, warts and all, and portrays the nation as a work in progress.
“It’s a struggle,” he says. “The desire of America to become a multicultural diverse nation with freedom of speech and rights for everyone is a grand experiment and it’s still playing out.”