Goodspeed's Rewritten RAGS Draws Inspiration from Lower East Side Tenement Museum

The Day recently published an article discussing a new production of Rags that will be performed at the Goodspeed Opera House this fall. The production was rewritten to be "equally about the past as it is about the present, as the writers drew inspiration from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and related what they saw there to immigration today."

"We look at the many things that were happening during the time - the unionization of sweatshops, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, immigrants coming with nothing but a certain skill to get them by," says book writer David Thompson. "All of this informs the story. But at the end of the day, rewriting this musical has become about taking a focus on a set of characters and telling a heartfelt story."

One major change is found in the character of Rebecca Hershkowitz, the 27-year-old Jewish immigrant who fled Russia with her young son David. In this new production, however, the mother and son live and work within a tenement in the Lower East Side throughout 1910-1911, an idea that Thompson created after his visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

"In our version, the tenement apartment becomes a character in itself really. You have this group of people living and interacting within this tight space. And it's the presence of the apartment throughout the show that starts to become something of a character. It becomes the place that brought this group of people together."

Read the full story here. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit http://www.goodspeed.org/productions/2017/rags.

Welcome to the new world! Fresh from Ellis Island, a young mother and her son search for a new life and a sense of home as the 20th century beckons. The streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side may not be paved with gold, but they echo with the music of opportunity, optimism and hope. A ravishing score by the songwriters of Wicked and Annie colors a sweeping saga of America's immigrant past. Celebrate our rich roots in Goodspeed's new adaptation of a neglected masterpiece of the musical theatre.