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LaChanze in Ragtime

#1LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/27/15 at 1:17pm

Who saw her? Was she good? 

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Jordan Catalano
#2LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/27/15 at 1:32pm

She was very good, yes.

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Someone in a Tree2
#3LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/27/15 at 1:37pm

She was heartbreaking, and small in a way, which was great for the part, rather than the larger than life portrayal you got from Audra in the Broadway cast. I'd drop everything to see Audra in any part she chooses to play-- she's that astonishing-- but I think her magnificence slightly tipped the balance in RAGTIME away from Sarah being on equal footing with Coalhouse, or even subservient to him. With LaChanze the balance was ideal.

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MikeInTheDistrict
#4LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/28/15 at 1:48pm

Someone recently posted a video to Youtube of her and Alton Fitzgerald White performing "Wheels of a Dream" on The Today Show. Based on just this one clip, I love her. She captures a sense of innocence and youthful enthusiasm that is different from Audra's:


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DottieD'Luscia
#5LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/28/15 at 1:58pm

^Thank you for posting! I knew that clip existed as I remember seeing it the first time it aired. I saw LaChanze shortly before she left Ragtime when she was pregnant with her first child.  As much as I love Audra, I actually preferred LaChanze in the role of Sarah. 


Hey Dottie! Did your colleagues enjoy the cake even though your cat decided to sit on it? ~GuyfromGermany

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EricMontreal22
#6LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/28/15 at 4:30pm

Ahrens has said they wrote the role for her (no surprise since she had been in Once on this Island.)

I saw Ragtime twice during its massive sit down in Vancouver (Drabinsky originally had two major productions--the Toronto one which moved to Broadway and the LA one which moved to Vancouver and then, I think, to Chicago.)  The cast was nearly all impeccable and I think prettymuch as strong as the Broadway cast (I need to pull out my program but Kingsley Leggs was Coalhouse and John Rubinstein was Tateh, I remember.)  At first I was just disappointed I wasn't seeing Audra--I was a teen and had not heard Island yet--all I knew about LaChanze was her lovely Another Hundred People on the Company revival CD.  Anyway, I echo everyone's thoughts here--she was amazing--the highlight in the cast for me.  And while Audra sounds magnificent on the CD, LaChanze gives Sarah more vulnerability.

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best12bars
#7LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/28/15 at 10:26pm

I saw LaChanze play Sarah four times with the American Premiere cast in Los Angeles. Every time I saw it, she got better in the role and in the songs.

She was the perfect Sarah to me. Better than Audra for that role.


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adamgreer
#8LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/28/15 at 10:38pm

That television performance reminded me how much I enjoyed Alton Fitzgerald White as Coalhouse. I also had completely forgotten about White's wrongful arrest, which took place during his run in the show. 

I didn't see LaChanze- she was out the night I went to see it during her run, but I remember not particularly enjoying her understudy (Tonya Dixon) very much. Audra and the final Sarah, Darlesia Cearcy, were both better than Dixon. 

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GavestonPS
#9LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/29/15 at 5:42pm

I saw her twice in LA and she was so good, I assumed she WAS that Audra MacDonald person I kept hearing so much about. (Eventually I looked at my program and realized my error.)

 

jwsel
#10LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/29/15 at 7:54pm

EricMontreal22 said: "Ahrens has said they wrote the role for her (no surprise since she had been in Once on this Island.)

I saw Ragtime twice during its massive sit down in Vancouver (Drabinsky originally had two major productions--the Toronto one which moved to Broadway and the LA one which moved to Vancouver and then, I think, to Chicago.)  The cast was nearly all impeccable and I think prettymuch as strong as the Broadway cast (I need to pull out my program but Kingsley Leggs was Coalhouse and John Rubinstein was Tateh, I remember.)  At first I was just disappointed I wasn't seeing Audra--I was a teen and had not heard Island yet--all I knew about LaChanze was her lovely Another Hundred People on the Company revival CD.  Anyway, I echo everyone's thoughts here--she was amazing--the highlight in the cast for me.  And while Audra sounds magnificent on the CD, LaChanze gives Sarah more vulnerability.

 

"

John Rubinstein did play Tateh in LA.  I'm not sure the casts were Toronto/New York and LA/Chicago/Vancouver.  Brian Stokes-Mitchell played Coalhouse in Toronto, LA, and New York.  Steven Sutcliffe and Judy Kaye played Younger Brother and Emma Goldman, respectively, in LA and New York, but not Toronto.

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EricMontreal22
#11LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/29/15 at 9:06pm

Some of the leads did change--but I believe that's roughly how it went--at least the LA physical production moved to Van.  I don't have my program here but I wanna say Mother was Donna Bulock (?)

aj88
#12LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/29/15 at 10:33pm

I saw both Audra and LaChanze.

I still give the edge to Audra but I do feel that LaChanze was pretty much just as good and I agree that her vulnerability was more compelling and it made more sense.

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adamgreer
#13LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 12:27am

EricMontreal22 said: "Some of the leads did change--but I believe that's roughly how it went--at least the LA physical production moved to Van.  I don't have my program here but I wanna say Mother was Donna Bulock (?)

 

"

Are you talking about LA? Mother was played by Marcia Mitzman-Gaven in Los Angeles, and by Donna Bullock in Vancouver and (I think) Chicago. She eventually came to Broadway as the replacement for Marin Mazzie. Rebecca Eichenberger also played the role (on tour maybe?).

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everythingtaboo
#14LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 1:30am

I saw both and loved them equally. I found LaChanze's take to be a little raw and natural, grounded, which gave the piece as a whole a stronger sense of immediacy. Of course, Audra was Audra. Class of her own. 




"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008

Owen22
#15LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 2:03am

In some ways she was better than Audra.  Maybe easier to believe her status? For whatever reason, she was the best of the replacement cast members.

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EricMontreal22
#16LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 3:13am

Just because this has not been posted yet, Sarah Brown Eyes from the same TV performance.  Even comparing it to Audra on the recording, you can tell how different LaChanze's performance is--:

 

Updated On: 8/30/15 at 03:13 AM

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EricMontreal22
#17LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 4:49pm

Adamgreer, sorry I wasn't clear, I meant Donna in Vancouver which was the production I repeatedly saw.  Thanks for the cast details--I'm surprised Wiki, which often is very detailed with modern musical's productions, doesn't even mention the LA production.  I remember her being good--I wonder why according to IBDB she has so few Broadway credits--replacing Marin being one of the bigger ones.

jwsel I did find this Variety review of the tour that confirms the Chicago production was the LA/Vancouver one http://variety.com/1998/legit/reviews/ragtime-5-1200455921/

"This new Chicago company (there are now three troupes of “Ragtime” in North America, including the national tour currently in Minneapolis) was pulled together from the remnants of the Los Angeles and Vancouver productions.

The Canadian version closed and was re-formed as a Chicago-originating endeavor mainly to save Livent some per diems; financial exigencies also explain why this still-massive show has been rearranged for the road so that it can be produced with six fewer performers."

As a West coast based Canadian, it was very exciting that we did get the production (in the new, gorgeous Drabinsky built Ford Theatre which is now unimaginatively called The Centre,) right after LA.  It was the first time I was able to see a show before it was up for a Tony.  Of course this was before all of Drabinsky's crap, but it seemed like a Godsend to me as a theatre obsessed teen (even if admittedly, for whatever reason, Drabinsky's dream to make Vancouver a rival to Toronto as a theatre city never quite stuck.)  We had already had major sit down productions in Van from Livent--Show Boat and the Canadian production of Sunset Blvd which only played Toronto and Van as it was too large to tour affordably--and sadly Ragtime was the last due to the Livent issues--their theatre quickly was bought up as a Chinese church, although it's now a theatre again.  But for a brief moment I was very optimistic--Parade was even originally meant to open in Van first.

Does anyone know how the Ragtime tour was downsized aside from losing six performers, and how many cities it did?

 

 

 

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EricMontreal22
#18LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 4:58pm

More about the Chicago casting and changes in the staging from Variety (I didn't realize this was Hinton Battle's first big role.)  I have no idea what they mean about LaChanze's vocal limitations though:

 

As has been Livent’s past practice with Chi-originating product, however, most of the principals in this production — including LaChanze, Peer Kevorian, Joe Dellger and Donna Bullock — have played their roles before in other cities. That is not true, however, of Hinton Battle. Perhaps that’s in part why the three-time Tony winner’s version of the ill-fated Coalhouse Walker is so strikingly different from that of Broadway original Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Physically slighter and far more emotional, Battle lacks the stentorian Stokes’ tragic magnitude. But he nonetheless turns in a fluid, vulnerable performance that’s probably more true to the character in E.L. Doctorow’s original novel.

Among the other principals, Vancouver vets Bullock and Dellger are both exceptionally poignant as the bewildered WASPs caught in strange new music. And if LaChanze and Kevorian have their vocal limitations, their acting is both strong and compelling.

Never one to leave well enough alone, Galati has usefully tinkered with some of his imaginative staging. The ensemble machinations around Sarah’s funeral look quite different from New York, as do the illusions of Houdini. The escapologist’s endeavors (and, indeed, his character) seem much more closely linked to the rest of the show in Chicago, thanks in part to a refreshingly less mannered performance from newcomer David Bonanno.

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somethingwicked
#19LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 5:17pm

adamgreer, Barbara Walsh replaced Donna Bullock as Mother in Chicago when Bullock left to replace Marin Mazzie in the Broadway company. Stephanie Mills was playing Sarah in Chicago by the time Walsh joined.


Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Updated On: 8/30/15 at 05:17 PM

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adamgreer
#20LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 5:45pm

somethingwicked said: "adamgreer, Barbara Walsh replaced Donna Bullock as Mother in Chicago when Bullock left to replace Marin Mazzie in the Broadway company. Stephanie Mills was playing Sarah in Chicago by the time Walsh joined.

 

"

That makes sense, thanks! Eichenberger must have done the national tour, than. Didn't Hinton Battle also appear in the Chicago company at some point?

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EricMontreal22
#21LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 6:23pm

The Variety link in my post above suggests Hinton was in the Chicago from the start.

broadwayboy223
#22LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 6:59pm

Stephanie Mills played Sarah? Anyone have footage of that?

broadwayboy223
#23LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 6:59pm

Stephanie Mills played Sarah? Anyone have footage of that?

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DottieD'Luscia
#24LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 7:20pm

I saw the Ragtime tour in January 2001 in Baltimore.  The only one I remember is Rebecca Eichenberger as Mother.  I have no idea who the Coalhouse and Sarah were.  I left very disappointed.  The show was scaled down. The set looked cheap.  I definitely didn't have the impact that the Broadway production did.

I saw the final Broadway performance as well.  I loved Alton White as Coalhouse, and Donna Bullock as Mother.


Hey Dottie! Did your colleagues enjoy the cake even though your cat decided to sit on it? ~GuyfromGermany

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EricMontreal22
#25LaChanze in Ragtime
Posted: 8/30/15 at 11:44pm

Interesting about the set looking cheap--I wish I could find pics.  The sit down production was so massive set wise--it seemed like they had a complete new set just for a 5 min scene--that I get why some critics called it over produced.  I wouldn't--because it was all so effective.