Shadow Theatre and Boulder’s Dinner Theatre are as different as black and white.
Colorado’s only black company doesn’t do musicals. It does spirituals – and August Wilson. BDT is known for family fare like “The Wizard of Oz” and its upcoming “The Sound of Music.”
Separately, neither would ever consider staging “Ragtime,” the anthemic, epic look at racism, immigration and, yes, separatism in 1902 America. Together, they are mounting the first local staging of a musical many consider the best of the past three decades.
“Ragtime,” based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel, is being staged in Boulder with Shadow founder Jeffrey Nickelson playing musician-turned-radical Coalhouse Walker. In all, six Shadow members, including stalwarts Dwayne Carrington and Hugo Jon Sayles, have integrated BDT’s tight-knit troupe to form an ensemble of 23.
This unprecedented collaboration is a microcosm of what Doctorow hoped to accomplish in addressing class and racial conflicts from white, former slave and Jewish immigrant perspectives: bringing disparate people together.
“It is critical that we be bigger than some of the social issues that still exist in race relations in America,” said Nickelson. “And by being the artists we are, by being the ones who will stay on the ship and play the music while it is going down, we also have to be the leaders in bringing communities together that would not ordinarily come together.”
Director Michael J. Duran immediately saw the advantages in bringing these companies together.
“I came here in 2003 from New York, where the theater community is very cohesive,” he said. “But here I felt we were separate from everybody else, and I didn’t want to be separate anymore. I longed for that sense of community. I saw this as a phenomenal opportunity to not only bring our communities together, but our audiences together.”
The last time BDT took on anything of real social relevance was in 2004 with “Cabaret” – an award-winning, box-office disaster because school and church groups wanted nothing to do with a show that includes Nazism and homosexuality.
“I know this is a risk, but it’s a risk worth taking,” said Duran. “It’s up to us to educate our audiences that there is other material out there we also need to be doing. This is one of the great stories of the century. So the only real reason it is a risk is name recognition.”
“Ragtime” was largely buried under “The Lion King” juggernaut when both were first staged in 1998. But Nickelson says it’s deeper than that.
“The risk is that most people don’t like mirrors held up,” he said. “The risk is that oftentimes, people go to theater so as not to deal with the reality of our everyday existence, and this show is a reminder of our everyday existence even now.
“It’s important that this story be told today because this problem that existed at the turn of the century still exists today. That problem is the separation of cultures. Period. The only thing that’s changed is that while some immigrant groups have homogenized a little more comfortably, African-Americans are still considered a subculture in this country.”
Nickelson believes the seminal moment of “Ragtime” comes when Coalhouse’s grandfather asks if he knows any “coon songs,” to which Coalhouse replies: “Coon songs are made for minstrel shows. White men sing them in blackface. This is called ragtime.”
“That line says so much to me because he came into this place in a box, and he destroyed that box immediately, intelligently and articulately,” he said.
Nickelson met some resistance within his company when he suggested they join forces with BDT.
“But now that it is happening, their minds are opening up and they are saying, ‘Wow, this is an important thing that we are doing,”‘ he said. “Now I’m a kid in a candy story in the presence of all these great artists.”
The companies have one cast member in common. Lea Chapman began with Shadow but of late has enjoyed the financial stability that comes with BDT’s longer runs. In “Ragtime,” her baby, Pharoh L. Johnson, appears as little Coalhouse.
“For my Boulder family, I think this collaboration was much anticipated,” she said. “A lot of us have been really wanting new experiences, and boy, this would be it. And for me personally, I feel like my family is now complete. I have the best of both worlds.”
She said “Ragtime” is changing lives – not just on stage.
“One BDT cast member told me he never thought African-Americans had any kind of life outside their servant work during this time period,” Chapman said. “So for him to see where we were then … and where we are now? Well, now we’re all in the same dressing room together. We’re performing on the same stage.
“That is amazing.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Ragtime”
MUSICAL|Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, 5501 Arapahoe Ave.|By Terrence McNally (book); Stephen Flaherty (music); Lynn Ahrens (lyrics); based on book by E.L. Doctorow|Directed by Michael J. Duran|Starring Jeffrey Nickeslon, Leonard Barrett after May 7)|THROUGH MAY 26|7 p.m. Wednesdays, 7:45 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 1:45 and 7:45 p.m. Sundays (dinner 90 minutes before)|$32-$53|303-449-6000 or bouldersdinnertheatre.com
