First of all, Someone In a Tree2, I'm best12bars, not Namo.
I actually feel very qualified to answer your question, since I saw Ragtime 4 times in Los Angeles with a different cast (except for Brian Stokes Mitchell and Judy Kaye, who were both in the L.A. Premiere cast) before the show opened on Broadway a few months later. I saw Lion King in NY right after that, as well as Ragtime with the NY cast.
It's difficult to judge them because they were and are both worthy of the award. I don't agree with you that Best Musical is a writers award, primarily. That's why they have writers awards for Best Book and Best Music and Lyrics. If Best Musical were a writers award, then they should do away with those other categories. They're redundant.
To me, it's very similar to Best Picture at the Oscars, and we all know that the Best Picture winner doesn't always get a Best Screenplay award (and sometimes, it isn't even nominated). I believe this is an overall production award, which is why it goes to the producers. It's the culmination of everything to do with a particular production on Broadway. Yes, that includes the writing, but it also includes everything else.
I'm not sure how many were privileged enough to see the Los Angeles premiere cast of Ragtime, but it was better than the OBC, which opened about 4 months after that. They had better chemistry at the Shubert Theatre in L.A. Things gelled better. In NY, the show felt swallowed up in that huge house, and the cast was out of balance, primarily because of Audra McDonald, who, in my opinion, was wrong for the role, but also outshone her leading man and most everyone else on stage. It was like she was in another musical. I was kind of appalled when she won the Tony. La Chanze, who played the role in L.A. WAS Sarah. You believed her in that part. Audra was grand opera playing street urchin. It threw the balance of the three main stories off, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, who had been so brilliant in the Los Angeles production, seemed to take a backseat to Audra whenever the two were on stage. I wish Frank Gilatti would have straitened that out in rehearsals. It was nothing short of "upstaging."
There is no question in my mind that Ragtime is a better written show. It deserved the writing awards. And Ragtime had fantastic, first-rate production values across the board: sets, lighting, costumes, choreography, direction (other than directing the actors' acting), but none of it was particularly new or different. Just really, really good.
Lion King was new, fresh, original, and brilliant. It's a show that shouldn't have worked at all on stage. But Julie Taymor's creative vision elevated the modern Broadway musical to new heights. It wasn't just her either. I remember that the original main choral voices weren't part of Actors Equity (unusual on Broadway) because they had talents that couldn't be found among the union membership (that's a way around hiring union, by the way). They were African singers, with a unique way of projecting their voices and singing. Just as soon as the first voices were heard at the very beginning, I remember thinking, "What the hell is this?!?" Something new. And I was instantly transported. I also remember the orchestra spilling out of the pit and into the boxes on either side of the stage, with drums and percussion going beyond the traditional pit orchestra in every sense of the term.
So, my opinion? Lion King deserved Best Musical (barely) over Ragtime, even with a fairly ordinary book and score. There was nothing else ordinary about it.
Ragtime was extremely good and could easily have won in any year, let alone that year. Lion King was something we had never seen before (at least in a mainstream Broadway musical).
Let's face it, the 1997-98 season was an embarrassment of riches. We should be so lucky as to have two such monumental achievements competing together again on Broadway.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 8/10/14 at 07:21 AM
