Ragtime - LA Company

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 12:14pm

I know that in addition to Tornoto, the original production also played LA before it opened on Broadway (with an almost entirely different cast, of course). Were there many differences in the LA production compared to the Broadway production?

[Jon]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 12:27pm

Changes were made during the Totonto run. by the time the L.A. company opened, the show was pretty much set. The NYC version was pretty much the same as what opened in New York.

Brian Stokes Mitchell left the Toronto cast to do the L.A. production. The L.A cast also included La Chanze as Sarah, John Rubenstein as Tateh, and Judy Kaye as Emma Goldman. Mitchell and Kaye then went to Broadway, with most of the princiapls from Toronto.

[Outgoing]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 12:28pm

If memory serves, the biggest change was in Act II. From the concept album there is a song called The Showbiz. Another song was inserted in Toronto, but was cut significantly in LA (it could have been changed...not too sure).

The other big change was in He Wanted To Say....just some shortening of that song.

I didn't see it in LA, but from what I was told the show in LA was as close to the final NYC production.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 12:48pm

The staging was virtually identical to what was seen in New York. Most of the changes made between Toronto and New York were included in the LA run first.

The LA production was excellent - it didn't have the kind of star power that drove the Broadway incarnation, but in a way, just as in the recent revival, it actually served the material better having a more homonogenous company of performers.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 1:02pm

Wonderful to hear! Thanks, guys!

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 1:28pm

Wasn't there something with fireworks that was scrapped either before or during LA as well?

[Jon]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 1:38pm

At one point there was a fireworks display at the end of the opening number. I saw the shopw in Toronto and NYC, and don't recall the fireworks. I only remember them from one ofthe television commercials.

When I saw it in Toronto, "The Show Biz" had been replaced by a song called "I Got a Feeling". I don't now if it made it into the L.A. version.

[Outgoing]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 2:20pm

I Have a Feeling! That's it! I couldn't remember the title but I can remember the tune. It was cut and the scene with Houdini and Nesbit in Act II was shorted and just had snippets from it in LA

The fireworks were in the Toronto production at the beginning of the run. They had to cut them early on because the smoke and haze they created after was causing the actors to lose their voices. I recall Marin and Audra both calling out because of the smoke.

[Wicked Fanatic]

Posted: 1/14/11 at 2:56pm

When I saw it in Toronto, "The Show Biz" had been replaced by a song called "I Got a Feeling". I don't now if it made it into the L.A. version.

Got my Playbill out from when I saw it at the Shubert in L.A. on July 13, 1997 and both of those songs were gone. According to the OC Register's review (6/17/97) it was cut when the "problematic second act Atlantic City section" was revised. Here's the list for what I saw that day with my feelings for each song in parentheses:
Act One:
Prologue: "Ragtime" (Showstopper!)
Scene 1: "Goodbye, My Love" (Good) and "Journey On"
Scene 2: "The Crime of the Century" (Good)
Scene 3: "What Kind of Woman"
Scene 4: "A Shtetl Iz Amereke" and "Success"
Scene 5: "Gettin' Ready Rag" (Good) and "Henry Ford"
Scene 6: "Nothing Like the City" (Good)
Scene 7: None
Scene 8: "Your Daddy's Son" and "New Music" (Superb!)
Scene 9: "The Wheels of a Dream" (Superb!)
Scene 10: "The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square", "Lawrence Massachusetts" and "Gliding"
Scene 11: "Justice" (Excellent), "President" and "Till We Reach That Day" (Showstopper)

Act Two:
Entr'acte: "Harry Houdini, Master Escapist" (Good; loved Jason Graae!)
Scene 1: "Coalhouse's Soliloquy" and "Coalhouse Demands"
Scene 2: "What A Game (Very Good)
Scene 3: "Atlantic City" (Replaced "The Show Biz") and "New Music" (Reprise)
Scene 4: "Atlantic City, Part II" (Excellent), "The Crime of the Century/Harry Houdini Master Escapist" (Reprise), "Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.", "Our Children"
Scene 5: "Sarah Brown Eyes" (Good) and "He Wanted To Say"
Scene 6: "Back To Before" (Excellent)
Scene 7: "Look What You've Done" and "Make Them Hear You" (Very Good)
Epilogue: "Ragtime (Reprise--Showstopper!)

Los Angeles Cast all of which I loved!
The Little Boy--Blake McIver Ewing--Star Search Grand Champion (Very Good)
Father--John Dossett (Good and he ate dinner across from us at a restaurant in Century City after the matinee)
Mother--Marylee Graffee (Superb!) (We had the Standby that day for Marcia Mitzman Gaven)
Mother's Younger Brother--Scott Carollo (Good)
Grandfather--Robert Nichols
Coalhouse Walker--Brian Stokes Mitchell (SUPERB!)
Sarah--La Chanze (Very Good; Know that Audra was a star but I liked her and was glad that she got a Tony years later for "The Color Purple")
Booker T. Washington--Alan Louis (Good)
Tateh--John Rubinstein (Excellent; Loved him!)
The Little Girl--Danielle Wiener
Harry Houdini--Jason Graae (Very Good)
J.P. Morgan--Michael McCarty
Henry Ford--Bill Carmichael
Emma Goldman--Judy Kaye (Excellent; Loved her!)
Evelyn Nesbitt--Susan Wood (Good; Can still see her at the nightclub on a swing = Gorgeous!)
Admiral Perry--Doug Carfrae
Matthew Henson--Duane Martin Foster
Willie Conklin--Wade Williams
Sarah's Friend--Jewel Tompkins
Charles S. Whitman--George McDaniel
Little Coalhouse--Trevion Johnson or Jamal Woods
plus 35 in the Ensemble of which some were listed above.

I love this show and I'm hoping that maybe next year the Ahmanson will do what they did with "God of Carnage" and "33 Variations" and bring it back to L.A. It was on a list that I got before this season for the Ahmanson of shows that I would like to see. It was #1 on the survey for me!