Ragtime

And I also try to tell my actors to find that as well.

For instance, when I was working on Ragtime, there were a lot of opportunities to find different moments like this, different lyrics, different phrases.

I would have to think back to what the specifics were, but I off the top of my head, one of the last lyrics in the opening chorus of ragtime pretty much lays out the entire show, right? Um, uh...

you know a strange insistent music putting out heat picking up steam the sound of distant thunder suddenly starting to climb it was the music of something beginning and era exploding a century spinning in riches and rags and in rhythm and rhyme the people called it ragtime i mean even in just that lyric you can see echoes of what's going to happen in The rest of the show, if you know ragtime, like the word exploding means something in the second act.

Riches and rags mean something.

The music, the sound of distant thunder, picking up steam, putting out heat, like all this stuff means something.

And for me as a director, it meant something because ragtime, if you know ragtime music, it has speed and it has musical changes and it's a strange insistent music, right? So for me, when I was directing Ragtime, I wanted that show to move.

Yes, there are ballads.

York.

I'm a big Wikipedia head and that shit really brings me so much pleasure where you're like, well, Peter has worked with both Julianne Moore and Lea Michele when she was seven years old in Ragtime.

Wow.

The web that when you're 76, just the web of people that you know is so amazing.

Yeah.

Second of all, no, I was a child in a production of Ragtime.

Wow.

So that's why I know all the songs in Ragtime.

That's incredible.

But, like,

Yeah.

How long into Ragtime's run did you first go on for Nick? Or, I should say, Nick the actor? Once.

Yes, and they actually, like, had to because of, like, the Thanksgiving parade.

Oh.

And she's been a regular on that for years.

And then Brandon just finished Ragtime.

He's also jumping into another project, which I am not at liberty to say.

So it's just about, and not that I'm, you know, busy, busy, busy, but I do have my concert schedule that always keeps me busy.

Is this correct?

They were trying to take a page from Evelyn Nesbitt in Ragtime, but we convinced them not to do

that.

Oh, okay.

The Choir of Man is heading back to the West End, and Patti LuPone is going to be doing her concert act, Matters of the Heart, for two nights in about mid-February.

In our cool things category, a student production of Ragtime was canceled right before it was supposed to go up, and the Broadway community totally stood by them.

They posted a video on Instagram that got over a million views, and a lot of engagement from people like Christian Chenoweth, but also other people who were a little closer to the production, like a Ben Levi Ross and a Joshua Henry.

Basically, the students made a video saying that right before their show was supposed to go up, the administrative unit and the Higher ups at the school were like, we don't like the subject material of this.

Regardless, not a good look.

So so that that has since been resolved.

The production of Ragtime will go up, I believe, early December.

It is.