Lincoln Center’s Big-Band ‘Ragtime’ Revival Gets a 2025 Cast Album

The ovation at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater often comes earlier than expected.

On many nights, audience members stand before the first act of “Ragtime” even ends, bursting into applause as Joshua Henry and Nichelle Lewis finish “Wheels of a Dream,” the hushed duet in which a Black couple sings about the future they imagine for their son in 1900s America. Behind them, a 28-piece orchestra surges, filling the thrust stage house with a sound rarely heard on Broadway anymore.

It is that sound that Lincoln Center Theater and Concord Theatricals Recordings moved to capture this month. A new “Ragtime (2025 Broadway Cast Recording)” was released digitally Jan. 9, preserving the score and performances from Lincoln Center Theater’s revival, which opened in October and has already extended its run through June 14.

In an era when many Broadway shows reduce their orchestras, shorten scores or skip cast albums altogether, the decision to mount — and then fully record — a nearly three-hour musical with 37 actors and a large orchestra stands out as both an artistic and economic statement.

“This truly extraordinary production, with its cast of 37 and orchestra of 28, creates an astonishing sound that we rarely get to hear anymore,” said Sean Patrick Flahaven, a three-time Grammy-winning producer and Concord’s chief theatricals executive, in announcing the album.

Flahaven said he “leapt at the chance” to work with the musical’s writers, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, on a score he has loved since he first heard the concept album nearly 30 years ago.

A revival as an opening statement

For Lincoln Center Theater and its new artistic director, Lear deBessonet, the revival is more than a nostalgic return to a 1990s hit. It is the opening statement of a new era at one of the country’s leading nonprofit theaters, using a well-known title to examine race, immigration and inequality at a moment when those issues dominate national politics.

When the production was announced in May, deBessonet called the show “sweeping, very American” and “a story that demands to be told.”

Based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel, “Ragtime” premiered on Broadway in 1998 with a famously lavish production that earned 13 Tony Award nominations and four wins, including best original score and best book of a musical. The show interweaves three storylines in early 20th century New York: a wealthy white family from New Rochelle; an African American pianist, Coalhouse Walker Jr., and his partner, Sarah; and a Latvian Jewish immigrant, Tateh, and his young daughter. Real-life figures including Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford move in and out of the action.

Minimalist visuals, maximal sound

The Lincoln Center revival, staged on the Vivian Beaumont’s wide thrust, keeps the show’s epic scale but strips away much of the original physical spectacle. Set designer David Korins uses a largely bare stage with modular staircases and a central revolve to move swiftly between New Rochelle, Harlem, Ellis Island and factory floors. Costumes by Linda Cho color-code the three communities — crisp whites for the New Rochelle family, dark and earth tones for Black characters and immigrants — under lighting by Adam Honoré that separates, then gradually merges, the social worlds.

Critics have been divided on the minimalist approach but broadly enthusiastic about the performances and the score. The Washington Post described the revival as a generally triumphant exploration of American ideals, praising Henry’s Coalhouse and Caissie Levy’s Mother for bringing emotional specificity to characters that can read as archetypes. Metro Weekly called the production a “stirring triumph,” saying there “isn’t a weak link in the cast,” though it questioned whether the spare visuals fully match the musical’s grandeur. The New York Post criticized the stripped-down staging but acknowledged “sensational singing” across the company.

Several reviewers have noted that scenes of racist violence and immigrant exploitation now land with particular force. Coalhouse’s storyline — in which his car is destroyed by a white mob, authorities fail to hold anyone accountable and he ultimately turns to armed resistance — is read against recent protests over police killings and systemic racism. The immigrant narrative, following Tateh from sweatshop poverty to success in the nascent film industry, echoes current debates over asylum policy, undocumented labor and the widening gap between the Statue of Liberty’s promise and many migrants’ experiences.

A high-profile cast, and a personal spotlight

The company is stacked with Broadway veterans and rising performers. Henry, a three-time Tony nominee, plays Coalhouse with a mix of warmth and volatility. Lewis, who recently starred in a national tour of “The Wiz,” sings Sarah’s “Your Daddy’s Son” to frequent mid-show ovations. Levy plays Mother, Brandon Uranowitz portrays Tateh, Colin Donnell is Father, and Ben Levi Ross plays Mother’s Younger Brother. Shaina Taub, the songwriter and performer known for her Off-Broadway musical “Suffs,” appears as anarchist and labor organizer Emma Goldman.

Taub’s offstage life has also drawn attention. In December, she disclosed that she had suffered multiple pregnancy losses over the past year and undergone an emergency dilation and curettage procedure during “Ragtime”’s opening week. In an interview, she noted that the same procedure saved her life and is among those targeted by abortion bans in several states after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturned Roe v. Wade.

Taub took a temporary leave from the production in early January for health reasons and is expected to return in late March.

The recording: full orchestra, full moment

The new cast album arrives against that backdrop, preserving not just a score but a particular moment. Produced by Flahaven along with Ahrens and Flaherty, the recording features the full orchestra under music director James Moore using William David Brohn’s original Tony-winning orchestrations.

The album runs 30 tracks, from the opening “Prologue: Ragtime” through the closing epilogue, and is available on major streaming platforms. A two-CD set is scheduled for release Feb. 6, with a two-LP vinyl edition following April 3 in three color variants.

In a joint statement, Ahrens and Flaherty said that capturing the revival’s performances “at this particular moment in time feels like catching lightning in a bottle.”

A costly scale in a changed Broadway economy

That sense of rarity is not just about the material. Large orchestras have become increasingly uncommon on Broadway as producers face high running costs and shifting audience habits. Recent new musicals often use bands far smaller than “Ragtime”’s or rely on electronic augmentation to stretch their sound. Some revivals employ reduced orchestrations or chamber-scale concept approaches.

“Ragtime” has struggled with those economics before. The original 1998 Broadway production became a symbol of financial overreach when its producer, Livent, collapsed amid accounting scandals. A 2009 Broadway revival that transferred from Washington’s Kennedy Center drew strong reviews but closed after 65 performances, in part because of the cost of running a large ensemble in a commercial setting.

At Lincoln Center Theater, a nonprofit organization that operates with a mix of ticket revenue, donor support and partnerships with commercial co-producers, deBessonet and her team have structured “Ragtime” differently. While financial details have not been publicly disclosed, the show’s initial limited run, the subsequent extension and its location in a subscriber-based institution have given it a cushion that many commercial revivals lack.

Audience demand has so far matched the ambition. Tickets have sold briskly, according to box office reports and public comments from the theater, and discount availability has been limited.

A recording that outlasts the applause

For those unable to get to New York, the recording — along with professionally shot performance videos of “Wheels of a Dream” and “Journey On” released in conjunction with the album — offers a way to hear how this generation is telling the story.

It also extends the musical’s recording legacy. “Ragtime” has been documented several times before: a 1996 concept album recorded in Toronto, a 1998 original Broadway cast album and a 2009 revival recording. Each captured a different sound and scale. This latest edition preserves a full orchestra and large chorus in 2025 conditions, with a focus on clarity and balance that highlights the three narrative strands and key set pieces such as “New Music,” “Till We Reach That Day,” “Back to Before” and “Make Them Hear You.”

When the Beaumont eventually goes dark, “Ragtime” will likely continue to be staged by regional theaters, colleges and community groups grappling with its portrayal of an America riven by race and class a century ago. For now, the Lincoln Center production is presenting those questions nightly in front of more than 1,000 people, while its new album sends the same music and words far beyond Manhattan.

The applause that interrupts “Wheels of a Dream” is fleeting inside the theater. On a digital recording, the moment is fixed — the sound of a large cast and orchestra wrestling with an old story that, for many listeners, no longer feels distant at all.