Michael Onabanjo-Whittaker and Sara Rajeswaran Lead Staged Concert of RAGTIME at Bishopsgate Institute
Under amateur licence from Josef Weinberger Ltd., Bishopsgate Institute and Centre Stage London will perform a staged concert of Ahrens and Flaherty's Ragtime - The Musical for six performances only in June 2016.
Ragtime - The Musical is based on the 1975 novel Ragtime by E L Doctorow and features music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and book by Terrence McNally - all of which won Tony Awards in 1998. This production will run at the Bishopsgate Institute in the heart of the City of London from 14 to 19 June.
Ragtime presents the colliding lives of three groups in the early 20th Century. We follow White suburbanites, Eastern-European Jewish immigrants and Harlem-resident African-Americans, set against the backdrop of pivotal moments in American history, most notably the emergence of ragtime music. The lush score features "Back to Before", "Wheels of a Dream", and the haunting classic "Your Daddy's Son".
Featuring the full, original, Tony Award-winning orchestrations performed by twenty-one outstanding musicians, and an onstage cast supported by an offstage choir, this is a fully-realised, performer-focused reimagining of a Broadway classic. With a creative collaboration that has lasted thirty years, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are the prolific and well-loved writers of shows ranging from Seussical, which remains one of the most-performed musicals in the US, the Olivier Award-winning Once On This Island, to wonderful, lesser-known scores including My Favourite Year, Lucky Stiff and A Man of No Importance. The stage musical adaptation of their animated feature Anastasia will have its world premiere in Hartford, USA in May-June 2016.
This new staged concert production is directed by Toby Hine with musical direction by Ben Ferguson and choreography by Lemington Ridley. The cast includes: Michael Onabanjo-Whittaker (Coalhouse Walker Jr.), Sara Rajeswaran (Sarah), Tasha Msanide (Sarah's friend), Michael Smith (Father), Trudi Camilleri (Mother), Will Howells (Younger Brother), Chris Hughes-Copping (Boy), Philip Doyle (Tateh), Marsha Blake (Girl), Tal Hewitt (Emma Goldman), Masimba Ushe (Booker T Washington), Siobhan Aarons (Evelyn Nesbit), Gabi Benton-Stace (Harry Houdini), Stephen Hewitt (JP Morgan / Henry Ford), Daisy Simpson (Admiral Peary), Daniel Haswell (Charles S Whitman), Lauren Nixon (Kathleen), Lesley Birch (Mrs Whitstein), Lora Jones (Policeman), Sean Westwood (Willie Conklin), Stephanie Da Silva Jardim (Brigit) and Basil Zafiropoulos (Stanford White).
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