And there was another change emerging – a new music style born in America, created by black musicians, that captured the new spirit of America like nothing before in its history. It was called “Ragtime.”

At the turn of the current century, this story and its music inspired an incredible new musical that beautifully captures this time period and its deeply divided society. The story tells us of an affluent white family whose lives become intertwined with a black family from Harlem and Jewish immigrants from Latvia – masterfully weaving love and racism, despair and hope, not to mention baseball and moving pictures, into the larger society with all its larger-than-life personalities mentioned above, giving us a rich and unforgettable image of America one hundred years ago.

Director Kathy Brombacher and the Moonlight Amphitheatre has brought this magnificent new musical to San Diego for its regional premiere, attracting many of the most outstanding performers from San Diego to Los Angeles to forge an all-star cast that is the equal of any I’ve ever had the good fortune to see, filling the amphitheatre with many of the most breathtaking voices I’ve ever had the good fortune to hear, and packing Moonlight’s seats and outer picnic lawns like few before.

But such a cast and such a show make it difficult to pick out the highlights without making the review as long as the play. Shall I begin with Lance Roberts as Coalhouse Walker, Jr. – the Ragtime pianist who stubbornly woos the lovely Sarah (Jennifer Shelton) with whom he has just had an out-of-wedlock baby? And who just as stubbornly will not back down when racist, vile Fire Chief Willie Conklin (Howard Bickle) destroys Coalhouse’s beloved Model-T, leading us down the tragic path. It is the story of Coalhouse and Sarah that drives the plot, and it is the impassioned and powerful acting and singing of Lance and Jennifer that moves our souls. Jennifer’s tender Your Daddy’s Son sung to her infant, Lance’s anguish and fierce determination to find justice ending with his inspiring Make Them Hear You after Booker T. Washington (Antonio Johnson) eloquently urges him to capitulate, as well as the couple’s duets of the hopeful Wheels of a Dream and the bittersweet ballad Sarah Brown Eyes help create many of the strongest moments of the play.

Then there is the wealthy white family of New Rochelle. Victoria Strong’s magnificent voice fills the role of Mother with her compassionate nature, most especially in her effecting duet Our Children with Baron Ashkenazy (Eric Anderson) and her tremendous solo Back to Before. Robert Alan Clink makes for an excellent Father who is torn between the patriarchal Victorian chauvinism in vogue and trying to be the caring husband and father that Mother wants him to be. So he takes his son, The Little Boy (Jacob Haren) to a baseball game where his son is sure to learn all about good morals and values. But instead Father finds himself and his son surrounded by vulgar, heckling fans who are definitely not right up his alley in the hilarious What a Game sequence. Ten-year-old Jacob Haren starts the entire show with his narration, and it is mostly through his eyes, eyes that can at times see into the future (including his ominous cry to Harry Houdini to “Warn the Duke!”), that we see the story unfold. Jacob’s clear narration, his innocence and unpretentiousness so at odds with the rigid social mores of adults, and his enjoyment of Father’s big baseball game fiasco were all very charming.

A poor, widowed Jewish immigrant from Latvia who goes by Tateh (Eric Anderson) and his unnamed daughter who goes by Little Girl (Alexa Bergman) round out the last of the main characters. They have big hopes and dreams for their new Shtetl Iz Amerike, but find life to be unbearably difficult and frightening within the slums of New York City. Tateh’s artistic creations – silhouette profiles that he makes for a nickel – don’t sell so well at first. But his efforts to amuse and comfort his daughter result in a new “movie book” in which, by flipping the pages, you can see the picture seem to move – a little girl ice skating, Gliding across a pond. The book catches the train conductor’s eye who offers to buy it for a dollar. At first reluctant to sell his daughter’s gift, a little amusing encouragement from the more sensible Little Girl results in their first big windfall and perhaps a brighter future for them after all.

Eric Anderson gives a remarkable performance, giving Tateh such depth and personality. His touching interplay with the adorable Alexa Bergman, his unique sense of comedy and humor, his frustration, his rage, his sensitivity, and his determination to do good by his daughter and by others all combine to make for a most memorable character.

More minor but also memorable performances abound. There is Katie Wilson as the charismatic anarchist who, when not in jail, easily stokes the flames of revolution with her powerful voice and words. Her voice is most notably displayed in He Wanted to Say where she joins Mother’s passionate Little Brother (Brian Michael Purcell) in describing all the esoteric and profound reasons why Little Brother wants to join Coalhouse’s outlaw band of terrorists. Of course, those are just all the things he wanted to say. The only thing he ended up actually saying is one of the best closing lines of any song in musical theatre history!

Then there are the entertainers. Michelle Lane soars as the “Girl on the Swing,” a.k.a. famous vaudeville performer Evelyn Nesbit who got great publici-teeeeeee when her rich and jealous husband offed her lover in what became known at the time as the Crime of the Century. Her vaudeville reproduction of the trial is a riot with its clownish jury of twelve dirty old men and Michelle swinging and singing about her strange good fortune, and with her trademark exclamation “weeeeeeeeeeee” done so hysterically that it gets a well-deserved rise from the crowd every time. Meanwhile, Illusionist and Master Escape Artist Harry Houdini (Steve Glaudini) entertains with his escapes from straightjackets and J.P. Morgan’s (Nils Anderson) vault as he tries to offer hope to the poor immigrants who work themselves to death for pennies within Morgan-owned factories in the song Success. If only he would warn the Duke….

The other famous tycoon in the show is Henry Ford (Ralph Johnson), leading his assembly workers in a creatively choreographed tune about his “success,” resulting in the rolling out of a Model-T of which Coalhouse becomes the proud owner, but which in the end becomes the flashpoint of so much pain.  

The entire cast joins together for several scenes that literally give me goose bumps, and more so every time I see the show, and even now as I replay them in my mind – from the initial title song where the three social groups of white, blacks, and immigrants keep their distance from one another but fuse their divine voices, to the heart-wrenching funeral that ends the first act with its sad but resolute Til’ We Reach That Day, to the stirring, final reprise of Wheels of a Dream.