NEW YORK — When Lear deBessonet, the incoming artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, was thinking about what should be her first show as its new leader, she landed on something sweeping, very American — and some unfinished business.
She had just directed an off-Broadway concert version of “Ragtime” — a big, soaring musical celebrating early 20th-century America — that had wowed critics despite being a bare-boned production with some actors reading from their scripts. Might it fit the bill if she filled it out?
“What you’re hoping is to make work that’s going to be meaningful in people’s lives, and I really felt that it was. And that it was in a way that wasn’t finished,” the Tony Award-nominated director says. “It really warranted the full flourishing of the idea.”
She gets her wish this fall as 33 actors buoyed by an 28-piece orchestra announce her arrival with a full-throated Broadway revival of the stage version of E.L. Doctorow’s bestselling novel. Previews begin Friday; opening night is Oct. 16.
“Ragtime” is the story of three distinct groups of characters navigating their way through the turbulent racial and economic times of 1906 in New York City — a Jewish immigrant with his young daughter, a well-to-do white family and a Black piano player.
“Because ‘Ragtime’ has, in fact, so many stories with multiple protagonists, there is an opportunity for people to connect with it in many different ways that reflect their own history, their own family’s history, their own experience,” she says.
Tony Award-nominee Joshua Henry leads the cast and views it as the perfect musical for this moment. “How we see each other, how we hear each other is right now at the forefront,” he says.
“I think ‘Ragtime’ puts the spotlight on how we have been successful and not successful doing that in the past, and I feel that’s going to help us move forward.”
The revival is part of a slate of shows that deBessonet is crafting for the multi-Tony Award-winning, three-theater complex on the Lincoln Center campus, one that has built a reputation for new plays and sumptuous revivals of great musicals.
“The work we make here I want it to be something that anyone of any background — whether they are visiting New York City or were born here — could come in and feel restored to humanity, feel connected to other people,” she says. “Part of why I’m such a passionate advocate for the theater as an art form is, I really believe, it’s a place where we can gather across difference.”
DeBessonet this season is also bringing over the London hit “Kyoto,” a political thriller about the climate accords, and a revival of “The Whoopi Monologues” with Kerry Washington and Kara Young. There also will be a family holiday opera and a comedy series in its rooftop off-Broadway venue.
“I feel like always as an artist there’s a natural humility. I’m making an offering. I am cooking dinner for somebody. I’m going to invite them to come and eat dinner at my house and I really hope they enjoy this food. I hope they find it delicious and nourishing,” she said.
Henry has watched deBessonet cook — both leading an arts organization and directing a massive musical. He’s talked to carpenters and electricians and people in the organization and says the mood is buoyant.
“There are some people who have been there for decades and are now talking about just the breath of fresh air that her leadership is bringing,” he says. “If this is any indication of what she’s capable of, Lincoln Center is in phenomenal hands for years to come.”
These are turbulent times for cultural institutions, with President Donald Trump putting pressure on the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center to be more in line with his vision. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been defunded, accused of woke programing.
DeBessonet, whose roots are in Louisiana, calls Lincoln Center Theater “one of the most magical temples of the theater” and that her mission is to “find stories that have deep resonance for our time.”
“We are an organization that supports great artists making great, complex, meaningful, thought-provoking works of art,” she says. “There will be many different viewpoints that are expressed in the art.”
Before coming to her new perch, deBessonet directed productions of “Into the Woods” and “Once Upon a Mattress” that went on Broadway as artistic director of the Encores! program at New York City Center. Now with “Ragtime” she’s taking a third musical to Broadway.
“It’s a story that really invites us to engage our complex, deep feelings about where we are now and where we have come from,” deBessonet says. “It’s exactly the type of work that I think belongs at Lincoln Center Theater.”
