Caissie Levy Is Ready For This Role Of A Lifetime In RAGTIME

Last year, we spoke to Brandon Uranowitz about Ragtime’s limited run at New York City Center. Now, Ragtime is back, this time on Broadway, along with the cast from that critically-acclaimed run, including Broadway mainstay Caissie Levy. 

Caissie caught up with us to talk all things Ragtime, Next to Normal, and what this role of a lifetime means to her.

‍Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

Theatrely: The team here went on that Broadway Cruise you did last March. I remember they asked if we wanted to go and when we were contemplating it, they tell us: Well, you'll get to do wine tastings with Caissie. I was like: sign me up.

Caissie Levy: That was a crazy day wasn’t it?

That whole trip was wild and I had the best time.

That was really fun.

So anyways, Ragtime. How exciting.

So exciting.

You guys are getting the band back together. As you start to get ready to dive into this, is there something that you really want to take from the City Center run that you're excited to dive into and explore again in rehearsals?

Caissie: Yeah, I'm really excited to dig into the relationships. It's so fast and furious at the Center. I had never done one before, so I was incredibly stressed. I was also like two weeks off of closing Next to Normal in London, so I was all over the place and really nervous and really excited. I didn't have one of those runs under my belt like Colin [Donnell] and Joshua [Henry] did. I believe Brandon [Uranowitz] had done one, maybe a couple. It all felt a little wild, which was part of its magic for sure, but I'm excited to have time in the rehearsal process to dig into the relationships. I'm really excited to deepen mine and Younger Brother’s connection. I think that's a really interesting storyline that we can bring out more and flesh out more. There's not all that much on the page. The feelings between us are really deep. Those are the kinds of things I'm excited to play with in the rehearsal room.

Ragtime is one of those pieces in our canon of theatre that is just so beloved by so many people. As you start to get ready for this big transfer to Lincoln Center, is there a pressure you feel with that, knowing that this musical is so beloved by so many?

Definitely. I mean, look, I've been in the really fortunate position to have this exact situation many times. I've done a lot of really loved, iconic shows, and that's been amazing. And every time it comes with a level of pressure and nerves to sort of satiate people and excite them and deliver some semblance of the elements they love and also deliver them something new and something unique to me as an actor. So, yes, it's all of the feelings all at once, but I'm not a stranger to this type of moment, so I lean on that a lot. I parent myself in those moments of fear that we all have. Because it's always easy to help someone else through that, it's harder to help yourself through it. But it's such an opportunity and an honor and it's what I dream of doing. Anytime it happens to me, you just sort of have to look fear in the face and do it anyway.

Lincoln Center, it's such an iconic venue. What are you looking forward to most about working there every day?

I've never worked there, so it feels like part of the legacy of what Broadway and New York theater is. It's so grand and means so much to so many people. I used to live right around the corner. Walking through that space is so iconic, so to know that that's where I'll be showing up to do this iconic show every day, it's almost like too much to bear to think about it. I think I've purposefully not thought about it because it is so grand and has so much history, but to be part of it and be sort of welcomed into the club is really exciting. It's really extra special every time you get a first when you've been doing this as long as I have and so many other folks have, it's always wonderful to recognize that and take that in.

Speaking of firsts, I want to talk about Lear [deBessonet], this being her first official production in her new tenure up at Lincoln Center. What is it like working with her as a director?

She's so charismatic and so strong and has a softness to her at the same time that I think is her superpower. She has the most empathy and she's still considerate and can really zoom out and see the big picture, which is necessary for a show like Ragtime and necessary to run Lincoln Center Theater. I think she's perfect for both gigs. It was a very fast and furious process [at City Center], but I was really wowed by her grace and her intelligence and the way she commands a room without ruling with an iron fist. I'm very excited to have a proper process with her that is four or five weeks long on a show this well-known and this loved and with the history of Encores. It'll be just very exciting to kind of just go deeper with her. She and I are in very similar places in life. We're around the same age. We are married. We have kids around the same age. Our sons have the same name, which is pretty wild. It's wonderful to tackle Mother with her and to know that my director so innately understands so much of what I'm bringing to the part.

When young folks come to see the show, whether they know it and have been fans their whole life or they've never seen a production ever, what do you hope they take away from your production of Ragtime?

Caissie: I saw this show when I was 13, I think, or 14, in Toronto, out of town tryout before it went to Broadway. What it did for me is what I hope it will do for the next generation of theater goers: to introduce them to what the magnitude of Broadway is and what it can mean and how it can feel and what theatre can do. I think Ragtime is sort of a perfect example of being this beautiful piece of writing with the most sweeping music and these characters you love and root for and care about and also you walk away having learned something and you walk way thinking about our world now and being a global citizen and what being an artist in the world means. Ragtime just does all of that. I hope that if it's someone's first experience at the theatre, that they're wrapped up in the awe and wonder and the sweeping nature of the music and the storytelling, and then that they get to go home and keep thinking about it. That's what it did for me.

I would love to talk to you about motherhood. You're going to lead a massive Broadway musical for the next many months. You have two children at home and you’re balancing life as a mom. How do you think about that as you start this process, specifically playing the role of Mother?

Caissie: It's on my mind every minute of the day. This summer, being with my kids and having the luxury of time with them, which I rarely have, has been so great in preparing for the part. It's just all so hard. It's all so amazing. It's what I dreamed of. It's so difficult and so amazing for my family that I do what I do. It is both awful and wonderful at the same time at all times. 

I was thinking about the parallels to what Mother is going through, and it feels really very much like where I'm at now. We see her at the start of the show pretty certain of her life and how life should be and how good things are and how contented she is. And then she thinks she's in control, as we all do. We have this illusion of control and then life happens to us and things broaden our horizons and good stuff happens, bad stuff happens. Relationships fracture. People change us by just coming into our life and it rocks her world and it makes everything deeper and harder and richer and scary and all the things wrapped up in one. And that's where I live every single day of my life as a mother and a wife and an actor in this wild business that we're in. So, I don't have the answers yet, but I'm really interested in all the questions. I think my goal for myself is leaning into all of the uncertainty. I feel like I'll innately bring myself to the part, but I think in having it be so specific, it will then make it more universal. I hope that people see themselves in Mother and see all of the questions we're asking ourselves these days and how to live life and how to be a good human and how to be good partner and parent and citizen. It's a very interesting time to be doing Ragtime.

When you reflect back on this entire Ragtime experience in five, 10, 15 years, what do you want to remember most about it?

Caissie: I want to take everybody in. It's such a big cast and such a massive orchestra, which is, oh my God, what a luxury, what an honor. I want to figure out a way to invest in my relationships off stage so that I get to take people with me, which is always the best part of doing theatre, getting your new family members. I hope that I look back on it and feel like it was of the time that we were doing it and that it honored the original and that we said something new for the next generation of people that will be introduced to Ragtime or that have been waiting for the revival and dying to see it again on stage.

I want to jump over to Next to Normal for one moment. It was filmed for PBS and so many Americans who weren't able to catch it over in London were able to experience this epic revival on screen. What was that like for you having one of your performances captured and experienced by so many folks not in-person? 

It was so thrilling. I poured my guts into that show for a couple years and I was, and am, so proud of it. It makes me emotional, actually, because it cost me and my family so much sacrifice to go and do it. And it gave me back so much too. I really feel like people saw me for the first time in a new way. This moment in my life and this stage in my career really means something so deep to me. 

When we did it at the Donmar, so many of my American friends and colleagues and acquaintances came over, which I never expected in a million years. When we transferred to the West End, it increased even more. Then when the Pro Shot came out, the support I got and the texts and the calls and the emails from people who I've spent my entire career admiring and looking up to, it just meant everything to me to be able to share it. We all hope that maybe it will come to Broadway at some point, but I literally have no intel or info on that. Everyone keeps asking me like, "So, tell me the real dirt" and I'm like, I wish I had an answer for you. But if nothing else, I'm just so grateful that it was captured so beautifully. I just feel very proud and grateful that it happened.

We interviewed Brandon for our Fall Preview last year as he was getting ready to do this, and I asked him about his journey, being involved with Ragtime as a child and revisiting it. Is there any show at any point, maybe besides ext to Normal, that you would love to revisit at some point in the next few years that you've already done?

You know what? Frickin' Murder Ballad. It was bad timing, that production. And that show is so awesome. I would love to see it be made into a pro shot. I think it would be such an amazing film. But you know, I love Trip Cullman. I love Murder Ballad's writers. I love that story. I love the cast. Oh my God, what a moment in time. I just feel like that was a short shelf life for such a brilliant piece, so I'd love to see that come back around. I could still play her, I think. Yeah, I could, I can still play Sarah. 

I think I'm past my Elphaba days, but I'm finally going to see it on Broadway with my kids soon, which will be really crazy. I'm going to take them back and see my name on the wall and show them pictures and stuff, so that'll be really really cool. I don't need to do that again, that's for somebody else. 

Next to Normal, yes I would love to keep on keeping on there. It's so funny because I'm such a planner in my life, but I've never been a huge planner on the theatre end of things. I've always had roles that I thought were amazing, but until they're sort of somewhat in the ether, it doesn't occur to me to play them. I'm hoping whatever comes next down the pipeline gives me that same feeling of just like, "Oh my God, why didn't I think of this sooner?"

Are there any other shows coming this fall on Broadway or off-Broadway that you're excited to go see?

Caissie: There's a bunch. I would love to see Batboy, of course. I love that recording and I feel like the casting is so perfect. I loved the original production of Art, so I'm really pumped to see that. I have to go see Hadestown because I have to see my bestie.

Mamma Mia! was what my husband was doing when I was doing Hair. He was on the national tour. It was when we were dating. So that's just nuts that it’s back. It's always exciting to kick off a new season, to be part of it and cheer your friends on. It never feels like competition to me. It always just feels like a big group hug, which is cool.

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