Ragtime Fans (pictures now!) — Page 2

You had the show's most touching dialogue by far:

"I'm not a Baron, of course. I'm a poor immigrant, a Jew, who points a camera so that his child can dress as beautifully as a princess. I want to drive from her memory every tenement stench and filthy immigrant street. I will buy her light and sun and clean wind of the ocean for the rest of her life. Now you know me. Now you understand. I am no Baron. I am Tateh."


Then there was the "Night that Goldman Spoke" scene. Particulalry when Emma addresses Younger Brother:


EMMA
Masturbates for a vaudeville tart!
What a waste of a fiery heart, dear

YOUNGER BROTHER
He thought she said...

EMMA, RALLYERS
Poor young bourgeois!

EMMA
There are things that you've never thought
Come to Emma and you'll be taught here!

YOUNGER BROTHER
His head was spinning!

EMMA, RALLYERS
People feathered and tarred, my friend
Unions broken, and why for?
Children labouring, women still enslaved!
Leave your little backyard, my friend
There are causes to die for!

RALLYERS
Strike!

YOUNGER BROTHER
In the gutters of the city
I have tried to find some meaning

RALLYERS
Strike!

YOUNGER BROTHER
In the arms of fallen women
In the thought of suicide

RALLYERS
Strike!

YOUNGER BROTHERLike a firework unexploded,Wanting life but never knowing how...RALLYERSStrike!YOUNGER BROTHERTill now! EMMAMy brother,Life has meaningI'll show you how!My brother, you are with us now!

He was calling out her name
Shouting what, he did not know
And he found that he was standing on a chair
With a heart as clean and new
As the freshly fallen snow
The night that Goldman spoke...

EMMA (to YOUNGER BROTHER)
I've been waiting for you.

YOUNGER BROTHER
At Union Square.

All in all, the best musical I've ever scene. Not a wasted lyric or cheap rhyme, more memorable songs in the first act than most shows get by the final curtain and one of the best 10:30 songs ever written.

Thanks Hawker! I really enjoyed doing it.

It is Flaherty and Ahrens' masterpiece, no question. I love their work, especially A Man of No Importance, but Ragtime is without peer among musicals. Musical theatre has always addressed tragedy, but usually peripherally (the tragic lovers on the outskirts of The King and I or South Pacific, for example). Ragtime, by taking on a central story of such tragic weight and social significance as that of Sarah and Coalhouse, nearly created a new genre.

(BTW, if you like Ahrens and Flaherty, you will like this week's quiz, by yours truly. It "officially" starts Monday but it's up now for early birds.)

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Updated On: 8/13/06 at 10:25 PM

I am completely obsessed with this show. Maybe because my name is Sarah, and I enjoying listening to Stokes sing my name. But it is an absolutely gorgeous score, I'm in the process of introducing my dad to it. I find it hard to pick one song that I like because I pretty much enjoy them all in their own different ways. I've actually just ordered the novel from Chapters and should be getting it this week :).

Each year, I have been in a High School Summer Musical Program and of all of the shows I have done with them (The Music Man, Ragtime, Chicago, Les Miserables, Cats), Ragtime remains the most memorable and most powerful of all of the shows! Such a wonderful musical! I love listening to it!

This thread has me written all over it. Ragtime is the first musical I truly obsessed over. The triple tour de force of Marin Mazzie, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Audra McDonald is legendary.

My favorite moment and song? That’s rough. For moment I will say the opening number when the three groups discover each other and walk in a turn-table like pattern around the stage. And my favorite song would be "Back to Before"

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AHHHHH I LOVE RAGTIME!!!!!!
oh my favorite song thats hard.... he wanted to say, wheels of a dream, your daddys son, night that goldman...., our children, make them her you, all of the tatah songs PETER FRIEDMAN IS AMAZING. and basicly every song exept for new music that song bugs me.
I saw the movie a while a go, it sucked but thats just my opinion

CanadianSnowbird: I just came over here to say that I partially love this musical only because I love hearing Stokes sing my name... hee. What's better is, I have brown eyes too.

I love every song in this show. I think this may be the only CD I can listen to straight through and not skip anything. My favorites though are "Wheels of a Dream", "Sarah Brown Eyes," the Prologue - I think someone said at the end of the prologue the last few lines "It was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning", that part is amazing and worth listening to the whole 8+ minutes of the prologue just to get to, uhmmm... and "What a Game" appeals to my inner baseball fan.

This is truly an incredible musical. I can't believe I waited so long to pick up the CD. I play it practically every day.

They weren't posted properly so you have to right click on them, go to properties, and then copy the photobucket URL and paste it into your browser.

I think someone said at the end of the prologue the last few lines "It was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning", that part is amazing and worth listening to the whole 8+ minutes of the prologue just to get to

Yeah, that was me. That part gives me chills every single time I listen to it. I totally agree.

luvtheatre11

hey ben, its gina from ragtime, and from that other show that you said youd do with me and joe, from ragtime. ahaha. now that is the small world.

We open on Thursday, the 7th. I am SUPER EXCITED!!!!! The production IMO is comparable to the OBC (I'm biased), and you can buy tickets on
my school's website.