There is only one thing missing from Lincoln Center Theater’s (LCT) superlative Broadway revival of the musical Ragtime: a decompression chamber for emotionally frazzled audience members to retreat to after the final bows.
At the end of three hours of Joshua Henry, Nichelle Lewis, and the company’s gorgeous singing, and a powerfully staged story of racism, immigration, and history that meaningfully echoes to the present-day, you may be wrung out in the best way by this enthrallingly mounted, directed, acted, and sung production (booking to Jan. 4, 2026). The melodically thunderous presence of Henry and this phenomenal company—they meld so beautifully as a collective—are the spellbinding reasons to book a ticket pronto.
When I first saw it as a stripped back “Encores!” presentation last November, there had been a ghost at the feast: the presidential election the following week. A show about the possibility and impossibility of the American dream as filtered through prejudice and bigotry, and all the iniquities and injustices flowing from its embedded poison in the social superstructure, hit the audience tangibly hard.
The musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel about American social change between 1902 and 1912, was first performed in 1996—winning four Tony Awards after premiering on Broadway in late 1997—and features music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and a book by Terrence McNally.
Its impassioned focus is on the fight and impetus for change, as represented by the musical style of the show’s title, and the brutal forces ranged against that change.
“Encores!” productions are as polished as they can be given a limited number of days of rehearsal and their semi-staged rough-and-readiness (Ragtime is following other standouts like Into the Woods on to Broadway.) While the music and musical talents of Henry and the cast blew the roof off last year, the show felt cluttered on stage, its book scrambled, and the production was confusingly and exhaustingly paced.
Now fully-staged and directed by Lear DeBessonet—formerly artistic director at Encores!, who directed it there and who is now LCT’s artistic director—with shimmeringly precise choreography by Ellenore Scott and music direction by James Moore, the show’s jagged edges have been smoothed to a clarified shine. As an opening number, “Ragtime” is not just gloriously sung, it clearly delineates characters and the social groupings that comprise the show.
Ragtime blends the stories of a Black pianist from Harlem, Coalhouse Walker Jr. (a stupendous Henry), who becomes a victim of racism and later revolutionary, his sweetheart Sarah (an equally stupendous Lewis), Latvian Jewish immigrant Tateh (a charmingly scene-swiping Brandon Uranowitz), his daughter (Tabitha Lawing), and a rich white family from New Rochelle (Colin Donnell as Father, Caissie Levy as Mother, and new cast member Nick Barrington, extremely funny as their truth-telling, future-seeing young son).
In this production, the roles of Mother’s radical younger brother (Ben Levi Ross) and Emma Goldman (Suffs mastermind Shaina Taub) assume a greater presence alongside Tom Nelis as the curmudgeonly Grandfather, Rodd Cyrus as an (appropriately) appearing and disappearing Harry Houdini, John Clay III as Black leader Booker T. Washington, and Anna Grace Barlow as breathy femme fatale Evelyn Nesbit.
The intense personal dramas of the characters play out alongside the broader historical sweep Ragtime illustrates, with walk-ons by Henry Ford (Jason Forbach and J.P. Morgan (John Rapson). The relentless churn of history, and past events both big and small, personal and social, powers the show.
The central thrill of this Ragtime is watching Henry and Lewis sing separately and together. The only question is how elated and/or wrecked their performances will leave you (Henry himself has said he cries himself thinking about the company-sung “New Music” as it “embodies belief in newness, hope, and second chances”).
The notion that America can be better, will be better, is most resonantly realized in “Wheels of a Dream,” which Henry and Lewis sing mesmerizingly together, bringing the performance to one of a few applause-breaking halts.
Henry’s voice swells and recedes like its own ocean, rousingly animating all his songs of injustice, determination, and yearning. Lewis’ “Your Daddy’s Son” is heartbreaking and beautiful, and “New Music,” as sung by the entire company, crackles with the musical’s most moving quality of transporting past to present.
Levy and Uranowitz hold their sections of the show with charm and wit; the former as a rich white wife who finds in her husband’s absence on an expedition to the North Pole a liberation he returns to quickly quash and suppress.
Levy brings steeliness and measure (especially in her big number, “Back to Before”) to a subtly drawn portrait of a woman straining for independence. Donnell has a thankless role, and his boorish character’s journey towards some kind of redemption is too subtle to be plausible.
Like Uranowitz, Levy mines the sporadic outbreaks of comedy of Ragtime. Uranowitz’s Tateh is both striver and fierce widowed protector of a daughter. (Your heart churns every time they are nearly separated.) Tateh won’t accept the second-class citizenship conferred upon him; twinkling charm, humor, and fierce determination are his weapons.
Designer David Korins has conquered the familiar problem of furnishing the large Vivian Beaumont theater stage by using simple signifiers (and bravely retaining the large ladders-on-casters that seemed perilous and ungainly at Encores! and now glide like swans with somewhere to go).
Linda Cho’s costumes are period-lovely, Adam Honoré’s lighting blazes and softens at all the right moments, Kai Harada’s sound design makes sure we hear every glorious note of the singers and excellent orchestra. (There are still wild swings in tone, character, and plot, and possibly the worst song about baseball at the weirdest possible moment—i.e. when you least want a cheery song about baseball.)
This Ragtime remains as piercing as its Encores! template because its cast is still looking out from the prism of the past to a present-day that is more evolved, but which has only partially succeeded in realizing whatever hope for lasting equality and progress Ragtime sings towards. Indeed, the forces of regression are presently resurgent.
“Make Them Hear You” the company sings at the end very much at the audience, followed by reprises of “Ragtime” and “Wheels of a Dream.” They are lovely closing songs for sure, but also sharp reminders—almost indictments—that the twinned struggles for justice and change are far from over.
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