'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
#1'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:15pm
Just got out of "Ragtime" (which was fabulous) and my friend who was with me told me about this op-ed in the Midland (MI) Daily News regarding a local production of "Ragtime" Apparently, the show was a bit "off color."
Tuesday reader's view: A vain attempt
Published: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 11:05 AM EST
To the editor:
â??Ragtime the Musicalâ?? was probably the worst musical I have seen put on by Music Society in the last twenty years. Compared to such ragtime hits as heard in the movie â??The Stingâ?? it was certainly a poor adaptation of that, although it may have been acceptable in the bordellos of St. Louis and New Orleans, the birthplace of ragtime. Although the leads did an outstanding job there was an awful lot of yelling and screaming rather than actual singing. I attend these performances and contribute to both Music Society and Theatre Guild to be entertained by their shows, not to be subjected to a vain attempt to make me feel guilty as a Caucasian about social and racial injustice that occurred 100 years ago.
I see it as a political effort on the part of liberals to silence citizens from expressing criticism of the current administration of our multiracial president, who however for just that reason works hard to ignore his white heritage and the white environment in which he grew up. This musical, if you can call it that, was first produced in Canada in 1996, clearly in an attempt to embarrass this country, because of its opposition to the U.S. going after a mass murderer. Judging by the audience when I attended the show, they did not seem like the people who would contribute to either Music Society or Theatre Guild. I think I will join them
Bill Sandt
Midland
Article
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." -Stephen Colbert
Updated On: 11/11/09 at 05:15 PM
#2re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:19pmWell, that was easily the most unhinged, poorly written, and bizarre thing I've read all day.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#2re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:20pmright?
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." -Stephen Colbert
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#3re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:20pmI like the part about Obama denying his white heritage.
#4re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:39pm... Wha? It was produced in 1996 so that Canada could make Americans look bad and feel guilty about their president? I couldn't understand what the hell that last paragraph was trying to say...
#5re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:41pm
Judging by the audience when I attended the show, they did not seem like the people who would contribute to either Music Society or Theatre Guild
btw, for those of you not fluent in small-town-community-theatre-patron speak, this translates to: "There sure were lots of black folk in the audience when I was there, but we know they only come see 'their' shows and stay at home when we do 'The King and I' [Calvin's note: with a mostly white cast] for the 26th time."
Updated On: 11/11/09 at 05:41 PM
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#6re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:45pmOoh, good point, Calvin.
#7re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:47pmIs Glen Beck using a Nom de Plume now?
Those Blocked: SueStorm. N2N Nate. Good riddence to stupid! Rad-Z, shill begone!
musicalsFan
Broadway Star Joined: 3/3/04
#8re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:47pm
Calvin,
Yep. You got that translation just right. It is so easy to see through these idiots.
#9re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:48pm
Small towns, race relations, and musicals just don't mix... My small-town high school put on a production of Carousel with a black Billy and a white Julie my junior year, and people actually walked out when they kissed after If I Loved You.
Updated On: 11/11/09 at 05:48 PM
SporkGoddess
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
#10re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:51pmI'm as politically conservative as they come and I love Ragtime, so whatevs.
Jimmy, what are you doing here in the middle of the night? It's almost 9 PM!
MusicSnob1
Broadway Star Joined: 10/19/09
#11re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 5:59pmIt's one thing to be politically conservative or socially republican, for that matter. But it's another thing to be a crazy right-wing fanatic.
When I think about you, I touch myself.
#12re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 6:04pm
Well it is just a letter to the editor, but the part about the show being "first produced in Canada in 1996, clearly in an attempt to embarrass this country."
Canada (Toronto to be specific..Canada is a HUGE country, not the 51st state) doesn't need to produce a musical to embarrass the U.S. They can do that all by themselves, and if we did want to produce a show to embarrass political parties we have our own embarrassment: The Conservative party and our current prime minister.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
#13re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 6:04pm
Well here is one Right Winger's Review of the Kennedy Center Production of this show now about to open on Broadway:
Right Winger Liked this RAGTIME
#14re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 6:12pm
Hey, that was the blogger pissed off at Oscar the Grouch! 
#15re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 6:36pm
This musical, if you can call it that
How is it not a musical?
was first produced in Canada in 1996, clearly in an attempt to embarrass this country
The American composer, lyricist, and book writer wanted to embarrass their own country?
because of its opposition to the U.S. going after a mass murderer
Because of an event which would happen 5 years in the future?
Like a firework unexploded
Wanting life but never knowing how
Wanting life but never knowing how
#16re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 6:38pmAnd he does understand that "The Entertainer" wasn't written for "The Sting," doesn't he?
#17re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 8:18pmIf being against racism, sexism and xenophobia is a liberal agenda, then sign me the hell up.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
MusicSnob1
Broadway Star Joined: 10/19/09
#18re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/11/09 at 8:26pm
AC, we all have bits & pieces of those three darling attributes - Don't try to deny it. 
When I think about you, I touch myself.
#19re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/12/09 at 10:08amHow much do you want to bet he wrote that letter in purple crayon?
Swing Joined: 12/31/69
#20re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/12/09 at 11:36amWhen I read stuff like this letter it helps me understand why those Teabaggers are so irate. They live in a very different place than I do and it's obviously a scary place and very hard to be a straight white guy there.
#21re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/12/09 at 12:20pm
The Letters to the Editor pages in most papers are packed with letters from bored, angry, scared, ill-informed retired people and whack-jobs who are uncomfortable with anything "different" and laden with too much time on their hands. This is (sadly) so typical.
I just hate that the papers give them a platform. A REAL opinion is one thing; a slightly unbalanced paranoiac with tenuous -- at best -- grasps on facts is another...
#22re: 'Ragtime's liberal agenda (at least thats what this guy calls it)
Posted: 11/12/09 at 12:23pmGood lord, you've got to be kidding me.
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