Kent Overshown as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and Britney Coleman as Sarah in the U-M Department of Musical Theatre's production of the musical "Ragtime."

photo by Peter Smith Photography

When musical theater professor Mark Madama, now directing “Ragtime” at the University of Michigan, saw the 1st preview performance of the epic musical in Los Angeles years ago, he “just sat there with (his) jaw hanging open.”

So to say Madama was impressed by the show would be an understatement.

“When we first talked about doing ‘Ragtime’ (at U-M), I thought, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ I just loved it so much,” said Madama. “I thought that all I would do was muck it up. … But then I thought, ‘If I can think of something that would rip me away from that original production, something that would bring a freshness to it, than maybe I could do it.’ So I slept on it and woke up the next morning and drew these ramps and a full orchestra on a stage. … It was just one of those ‘trusting in the universe’ moments.”

Indeed, Madama and his design team have done just that, placing 23 musicians, surrounded by ramps, onto the Power Center stage, while also bringing up the orchestra pit. Plus, 1 priority for Madama involved not reducing the orchestra to a dozen players (“In order to do the music justice, you need a full orchestra,” said Madama).

“It’s such a musical show,” Madama said. “It’s almost like a movie, in that nearly the whole show is underscored, so I wanted to feature the music just as much as the action.”

“Ragtime” — based on E. L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel, with a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynne Ahrens — tells the story of 3 different families, living in very different Americas, in the earliest years of the 20th century. There’s Coalhouse, a ragtime piano player in Harlem; Father and Mother, a well-to-do WASP family; and Tateh, a Jewish immigrant struggling to support his young daughter in a foreign land.

The show premiered in Toronto in 1996, then on Broadway — in a lavish production that featured a real Model T, fireworks, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald and Marin Mazzie — in 1998. Plus, a scaled-down revival hit Broadway last fall.

“It’s epic, it’s huge, it takes a lot of cast, … and you need a full orchestra,” said Madama. “And that makes it difficult. … But in other ways, it’s not as massive as you think. You bring out a chair and a table, and you have an environment. You bring out a piano and a doorway, and you’ve got a house. The audience gets that. … But it’s deceptive. (‘Ragtime’) just feels like this epic show with anthems that make you think you’re watching a major opera, where you go ‘Wow.’”

One distinctive element of U-M’s production is a screen that acts as the stage’s back wall, which will show still photos and film at various times. The upside of doing a show with 3 complex storylines, of course, is that several students are getting an opportunity to take on meaty roles.

“The actors have pressure taken off them by this,” said Madama. “It’s not like ‘Evita,’ where your Eva is required to push that entire show forward. In this, everybody gets some time off, and then they’re back on for their own storyline, until the end, when they all come together.”

In addition to several substantial roles for actors, “Ragtime” features a number of real historical figures in its story, like Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, J.P. Morgan and anarchist Emma Goldman.

“You read a biography of Emma Goldman, and you read about her warmth and her kindness,” said Madama. “But when you’re doing a theatrical piece, and you need her to be a strong centerpiece, there’s not much room for that.”

So those student-actors assuming real-life roles have done their research (even it they don’t get to use all they learn), but Madama, more generally, has held more general discussions about the era with his cast.

“We’ve talked an awful lot about what it was to be an immigrant, ripped apart from all you know, without a family, working all these hours, having your children working all those hours, until they fall asleep at the looms, and get killed or lose an arm,” said Madama. “We’ve talked about the reason people are so energized at these rallies, and what it was like to be African American at that time.”

Madama has used the difficulty, pain and frustration of the characters’ situations to make the show feel immediate, despite its era. “We’re trying to get at that raw anger these people felt, and not play (the show) as a period piece that’s precious or removed from who we are and what we are.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.