STAGES’ “Ragtime the Musical”  Reveals the Tapestry of America

     by Pat Lindsey

STAGES is wrapping up its 38th summer season with the Tony Award-winning “Ragtime the Musical” and its largest cast ever. It’s about America at the turn of the 20th century when immigrants were coming from overseas by the boatloads, Blacks were trying to find a better way of life, and the patrician class had to learn to deal with change and prejudice.

The story begins in New Rochelle, New York in 1906 in the suburban home of a wealthy white family. There is Mother (Marissa McGowan), who is the thread that weaves this story together, and Father (Dan Fenaughty), a businessman and adventurer. Living with them is their son, The Little Boy (Kyle Holmes), Mother’s Grandfather (Whit Reichert), and Mother’s Younger Brother (Matthew Cox). Mother is busy making travel arrangements for her husband to go on a year-long expedition to the North Pole and makes a comment that he should pay her for the work she does for him.

As Mother bids Father goodbye at the New York City port, she sees many smaller boats out in the ocean. Father tells her that they are filled with immigrants. As Father’s ship departs, another ship carrying the widowed Tateh (Brian Golub) and his young daughter (Zoe Klevorn) arrive to begin their new life in America.   Theirs is a rags-to-riches story–one that many immigrants aspire to live.

Most of the story unfolds while Father is away on his trip. Mother is working in her garden one day when she finds an abandoned black baby among the flowers. When she learns that the baby’s mother, Sarah (Shereen Pimentel), is going to be imprisoned, Mother takes both of them into her home and cares for them.   Eventually, the baby’s father, Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Tamar Greene) comes looking for Sarah, unaware that they have a baby. Sarah refuses to see him.

Coalhouse has made a good living by playing piano and the ragtime music he learned from Scott Joplin in St. Louis. Unlike most black men of his time, he is able to buy a Ford. He tells Mother that he is going to drive from Harlem to New Rochelle every Sunday until Sarah agrees to see him.

During the year that Father is gone, Mother has found fulfillment in her new caregiving role and relationships. When Father returns, the changes he finds in his home make him angry. Bigotry, vandalism, prejudice, and murder then thicken the plot and create an emotional journey for the audience as we follow the overlapping stories of three families in a rapidly changing America.

Director Deidre Goodwin has created a compelling masterpiece of historic importance based on the novel “Ragtime” by E. L. Doctorow and the book by Terrence McNally. Added to that are the phenomenal talents of Choreographer Michelle Potterf and Music Director/Conductor E. Renee Gamez who help make “Ragtime the Musical” an outstanding STAGES Grand Finale.

The casting for this production by the Wojick Casting Team could not have been better. The entire company is multi-talented, but the three fantastic voices that brought the house down were those of Marissa McGowan (Mother), Shereen Pimentel (Sarah), and Tamar Greene (Coalhouse). Their songs might not be memorable tunes, but they tell the story, stir our senses, and give us goosebumps.

The stage sets by Robert Mark Morgan are simple, but effective. The costumes by Brad Musgrove perfectly represent the Gilded Age and the poor immigrants coming to America with little more than the clothes on their backs.

“Ragtime the Musical” will be playing at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center now through Oct. 20. You’re already aware of the history, but seeing it unfold before your very eyes in song and dance is worth much more than the price of a ticket. For tickets, go to StagesStlouis.org or call the box office at 314-821-2407.

(STAGES will also be presenting “Million Dollar Quartet Christmas” Dec. 4-22. Don’t miss it!)

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