The musical won awards for Best Featured Actress (McDonald), Original Score, Book, and Orchestrations. Ben Brantley's review in The New York Times was headlined 'A diorama with nostalgia rampant.' It led the 1998 Tony Awards with thirteen Tony Award nominations, but Disney's The Lion King won as Best Musical.

The production received mixed reviews, with critics noting that the dazzling physical production (with a $10 million budget, including fireworks and a working Model T automobile) overshadowed problems in the script. The production was conducted by David Loud. The original cast featured many of the actors from the original Toronto production, including Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coal House Walker, Marin Mazzie as Mother, Peter Friedman as Tateh and Audra McDonald as Sarah, all of whom were nominated for Tony Awards, as well as Steven Sutcliffe as Mother's Younger Brother, Judy Kaye as Emma Goldman, Mark Jacoby as Father and Lea Michele as Tateh's Daughter. Directed by Frank Galati and choreographed by Graciela Daniele, Ragtime closed on Januafter 834 performances and 27 previews. It was the first production in the newly opened Ford Center for the Performing Arts. The Broadway production began previews on Decemand officially opened on January 18, 1998. The US premiere was at the Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles in June 1997. In 1998, it was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

A concept album, Songs from Ragtime: The Musical, featuring the Toronto cast was released on February 11, 1996. It was produced by Canadian impresario Garth Drabinsky and his Livent Inc., the Toronto-production company he headed. The musical had its world premiere in Toronto, where it opened at the then-called Ford Centre for the Performing Arts (now the Meridian Arts Centre) on Decemand ran for 9 months. Production history Original Toronto and Broadway production Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Harry Kendall Thaw, Admiral Peary, Matthew Henson, and Emma Goldman. The show also incorporates historical figures such as Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Set in the early 20th century, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in the United States: African Americans, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician upper-class suburbanites, represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by E.L.

Ragtime is a musical with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and a book by Terrence McNally.

Language in ragtime musical