RAGTIME at NEAR WEST THEATRE

p class="MsoNormal"Called by span style="font-style: italic;"Time Magazine/span "A triumph for the stage," and by thespan style="font-style: italic;" International Herald Tribune/span "the best musical in twenty years," this acclaimed musical won 1998 Tony Awards for Best Score, Book and Orchestrations, and won both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score. /p p class="MsoNormal"strongRAGTIME/strong is not only a powerful portrait of life in turn-of-the-century America, but a relevant tale for today. Written by the award-winning composer/lyricist team of a href="http://mtishows.com/biography.asp?writerid=3479"Stephen Flaherty/a and a href="http://mtishows.com/biography.asp?writerid=3399"Lynn Ahrens/a (a href="http://mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000049"strong/strong/aa href="http://mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000150"strong/strong/aa href="http://mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000135"strongONCE ON THIS ISLAND/strong/a,span style="text-decoration: underline;"span style="font-weight: bold;" /span/spanstronga href="http://www.mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000229"SEUSSICAL/a /strongand a href="http://mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000049"strongLUCKY STIFF/strong/a), noted playwright a href="http://www.mtishows.com/biography.asp?writerid=3487"Terrence McNally/a, (span style="font-weight: bold;"KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN/span, span style="font-weight: bold;"MASTER CLASS/span), and based on E.L. Doctorow's distinguished novel, the musical intertwines the stories of three extraordinary families, as they confront history's timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, and what it means to live in America./p p class="MsoNormal"The Tony-winning score by a href="http://mtishows.com/biography.asp?writerid=3399"Lynn Ahrens/a and a href="http://mtishows.com/biography.asp?writer