Lear deBessonet believes in miracles. It is something of a job requirement for the artistic director of Encores! at New York City Center, the musical theater series that dusts off beloved, but often ignored, gems from the canon for short-run, no-frills stints. With just 10 days of rehearsal—a breakneck schedule that is both thrilling and punishing—deBessonet is in the thick of preparations for her latest endeavor, opening this week: the turn-of-the-century American epic Ragtime.
“Every single moment in rehearsal is full focus, full intensity,” she says, clear-eyed but forgivably preoccupied when we meet during a break last week at the 55th Street complex, a former Masonic temple. In its way, the crunch is liberating: “We don’t have time to doubt ourselves.”
Based on a 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, the musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1998, follows three families in 1902 New York: one, wealthy and white; the next, a Black couple with an unexpected baby; and the third, a Jewish father and his young daughter, newly arrived from Latvia. The three storylines—performed, in this production, by an ensemble cast including Joshua Henry, Nichelle Lewis, Brandon Uranowitz, Caissie Levy, and Ben Levi Ross—intersect in a gripping combustion of hope and terror that fires the melting pot of this country.
Photo: Jenny Anderson