Give Us Mothering

Is Ragtime a musical event or a history lesson? When done this well, it's both.

- ADAM RATHE

I want to make theater that matters,” says Lear deBessonet, “work that invites a wide audience to experience the richest possibilities of what live theater can be.”

It’s no wonder, then, that deBessonet picked Ragtime, the 1996 musical about the pursuit of the American Dream—and the harsh realization of American reality—by a group of early-20th-century characters, for her first production as Lincoln Center Theater’s new Kewsong Lee Artistic Director. “Ragtime,” she says, “felt like the perfect way to begin my tenure.”