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Ragtime (play)

Ragtime is a Broadway musical play with book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty, based on the 1975 novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow.

The musical tried out in Toronto and Los Angeles, and opened on Broadway on January 18, 1998.

It tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker, a Harlem musician, Sarah, mother of Coalhouse's child, who comes to live in the household of a middle-class WASP family, and Tateh, a socialist Latvian Jewish immigrant. Historical figures such as Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Harry K. Thaw, Admiral Peary, Matthew Henson, and Emma Goldman also appear. The music includes marches, cakewalks, gospel and ragtime.

The show was nominated for 12 Tony Awards in 1998, and won for Best Actress, Original Score, Book, and Orchestration.

Songs