Opening the 40th season of the
Woodminster Summer Musicals is Ragtime.
This "new Broadway classic" celebrates
Woodminster's tradition of big beautiful
productions, glorious music,
and magical, memorable stories.

For a photo gallery of the show, click here.
For a press release about the show, click here.
For a cast list, click here.
For a press room, click here.
Return to Woodminster's home page here.

Above, Angela Dean-Bahan of Oakland plays Sarah,
and Lawrence Beamen of Walnut Creek plays Coalhouse.
Below, Grant Lowenstein as Little Boy and Joni DeGabriele as Mother.

July 7-16, 2006

Book by Terrence McNally
Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Based on the novel “Ragtime,” by E.L. Doctorow

An epic story of the shaping of multicutural America, based on Doctorow’s famous novel about the turn of the twentieth century. The lives of a wealthy white family in upstate New York, black working class people in Harlem, and Jewish immigrants at Ellis Island intertwine with each other, and with historical figures including Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, and Emma Goldman.

Presented by special arrangement with
Music Theatre International

Ragtime links:
• Music Theatre International's "Ragtime" home page. MTI says "This epic new musical by the award-winning composer/lyricist team Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens paints a nostalgic and powerful portrait of life in turn of the century America. Based on E.L. Doctorow’s distinguished novel, Ragtime intertwines three distinct stories that poignantly illustrate history’s timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, and love and hate."
Plot synopsis.
• Wikipedia says "Despite its limited run of Broadway, Ragtime is considered by many musical theater aficionados to be one of the greatest American musicals ever written."