Brandon Uranowitz, Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy and Nichelle Lewis on the Urgency of Ragtime

Like E.L. Doctorow’s novel before it, the musical adaptation of Ragtime offers a portrait of a fractured America. With a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, the show interweaves the stories of disparate characters in early-20th-century New York. It is a time rife with racial tensions and class struggle, protest and political violence, innovation and disillusionment. As the opening song of the show puts it: “An era exploding, a century spinning.”

Of course, that could also describe the times we are living in. “It feels like it was written yesterday,” Brandon Uranowitz told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. Uranowitz plays the striving Latvian immigrant Tateh in the new Broadway production of Ragtime. Directed by Lear deBessonet, the Lincoln Center Theater show is a transfer of the gala presentation staged at New York City Center in 2024. Uranowitz and several other cast members are reprising their roles.

Uranowitz laments the ongoing relevance of the themes of Ragtime. "I do feel like Ragtime is, at its core, an American tragedy. Obviously there's hope in it and there's optimism—but it's a tragedy. And I mourn the fact that this show that takes place at the turn of the 20th century still holds weight in 2025.”

Besides Tateh and his daughter struggling to build a life in America, audiences meet a well-to-do but deeply unhappy family, the chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, the anarchist Emma Goldman and the impassioned Harlem ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. and his family. For Joshua Henry, who plays Coalhouse, working on a show like Ragtime is a way to feel useful as an artist during a time of widespread tumult. “Sometimes you want to go protest, sometimes you want to go yell in the middle of the street. We get to be in Lincoln Center. Our act of service is showing America what America is in its glory and lessons that it has to learn.”

Henry remembers the first time he heard Ragtime, in the University of Miami music library in 2003. It was the voice of Brian Stokes Mitchell—who originated the role of Coalhouse on Broadway and earned one of the show’s four Tony acting nominations—that grabbed him first. “I was like, ‘Whose voice is this?’ I needed to know all about him. And then the score just blew me away.”

Nichelle Lewis, who made her Broadway debut starring in The Wiz last year, plays Sarah, Coalhouse’s girlfriend—the role for which Audra McDonald won a 1998 Tony Award. Lewis discovered Ragtime when she was a student at Molloy College after someone suggested she sing "Your Daddy's Son." "I listened to it and I was like, 'What is this masterpiece and who is this singing?' And you find out it's the most legendary, amazing, iconic Black woman, actress, singer, everything of all time. Just listening to her tell the story in my ears was an experience in itself.”

Caissie Levy plays the role of Mother, the quietly suffocating matriarch of a household in New Rochelle. Levy saw the 1996 out-of-town premiere production of Ragtime in Toronto when she was in high school. “That was one of the shows and one of the experiences I had in the theater that made me want a life in the theater.”

Ragtime marks the second time Levy has stepped into a role previously performed by Marin Mazzie, who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2018: As well as originating the role of Mother in Ragtime, Mazzie played the role of ailing suburban mother Diana Goodman in Next to Normal, a role that Levy played in London in 2023. “It’s a huge honor to try to follow in Marin’s footsteps,” said Levy. “Someone who was so loved and lost too soon.” 

Levy saw Mazzie perform in Toronto along with McDonald (“She blew my mind”) and Mitchell. It is “possible” that Levy also saw a Brandon Uranowitz in the show too. Uranowitz played the role of the Little Boy (Mother’s younger son) for part of that run, replacing a young Paul Dano. “They were bleaching my hair and my eyebrows every two weeks to make me look like a waspy little boy," Uranowitz said. "They took, I think, everyone to Broadway except for me. But here I am now.”

Uranowitz got honest about the impact of that experience and now coming full-circle. “I do feel like there's something very cosmic about this moment for me. It was tough for an 11-year-old kid to be this close to that dreamy thing. I grew up in New Jersey right outside of the city, so Broadway was always something that I aspired to. I still have to cope with those feelings of inadequacy in this business. So I'm feeling very grateful and lucky to be here to reclaim my time with Ragtime."

“It didn't happen there because that wasn't right. This is how it was meant to happen,” he reflected. “It’s not lost on any of us how lucky we are. It also is devastating in some ways that this feels so relevant right now.” Uranowitz has been thinking a lot about the timeliness of the production. There are new resonances with the news cycle, he said, “every single time we run the show.”

“My biggest hope with the show and doing it right now is that people don't walk away feeling like we answered all their questions. Or that we solved everyone's problems. Or that we held up a mirror and they saw themselves and they can just say, ‘Oh, wow,’ and leave. But that they leave asking themselves questions.” Uranowitz has been asking himself why some characters in Ragtime find the joy and happiness that are ultimately denied other characters. It’s a question that gets to the heart of the way things are in America. “I'm just deeply interested in the curiosity that it sparks for people.”

The structure of the show, shifting its focus from character to character, permits the actors more chances to watch each other perform. That can be an occupational hazard with material as powerful as Ragtime’s. “Almost every number in the show, I think all of us, every single person in the room is just bawling the whole time we watch it,” said Lewis.

“There are some numbers as an actor in the show that you can't watch because you have to get through your show,” said Henry. For him, one of those numbers is “Our Children,” a song, sung by Mother and Tateh, infused with a hope for the future. “Can't do it,” said Henry. “I'm like, I'm a professional. I have to keep it together. And I can't if I watch this.”

Levy concurred. “‘Wheels of a Dream’—forget it,” she said. “That's the thing I can't watch in the rehearsal room because I just cry. I cry at all the hope in this show way harder than I cry at all the sad.”

In “Wheels of a Dream,” Coalhouse and Sarah imagine a better life for their child. Performing the song makes Henry think about his eldest son, who is seven. “Can we dare to dream about those things? There are so many moments in the show that demand that we see what’s possible.”

“It’s such an ensemble piece,” said Levy. “The joy of that is that we get to share and then fade back and watch the next actor and the next storyline come into focus.” In that very structure, Levy sees a metaphor for what America itself might be. “I feel like that's what we need in our world right now. This active listening.”

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