Ben Levi Ross Sees 11 Tony Nominations Lift Ragtime
ben levi ross is a first-time Tony nominee for his featured role in Ragtime, and the recognition comes while the revival has picked up 11 Tony nominations overall. He was back in his dressing room at Lincoln Center Theater a few hours after the show won five Drama League awards last Friday.
Ross, 28, says he is trying to take in the pace of the season while still performing eight times each week. “I just keep saying to myself, ‘Even though you’re tired, take everything in, take every second in, keep your eyes open, look around,’” he said.
Lincoln Center Theater and the Tony run
That momentum has already reached beyond the Tony race. Ross won Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards in recent weeks for his featured performance, and he attended a Tonys “meet the nominees” luncheon the afternoon before the Drama League Awards with Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz.
Ross stars as Mother’s Younger Brother, a wealthy young man who becomes radicalized over the course of the show. The musical is set in the early 1900s, and Ross’s own case for the role is unusually direct: he had been obsessed as a teenager with the original Broadway company’s Tony performance of the show’s prologue, which he called “musical theater at its highest form.”
Ragtime’s 1998 return
The current revival also gives producers a clean commercial argument. “The success of this revival of ‘Ragtime’ should tell producers that you can have a successful show that is nuanced, that is deep, complex, that faces the ugly truths in our society — and that when all of those things come together correctly, it can be a commercial hit,” Ross said.
He added, “Those things don’t have to live on the fringes of the theater.” That is the real business story here: a show about racism, classism, politics and the immigrant experience is drawing awards recognition while still selling out eight performances each week, and Ross is now one of the faces of that case.
Five performance nominations
Ross said, “It gives you a moment to remember what it was like when we were first starting out — the magic that I felt in the rehearsal room,” and he expects that the Tony ceremony will recognize the production’s acting ensemble in a visible way. “Because we’ve had five performance nominations, you can be pretty certain that all five of us will be highlighted in some way with our performance,” he said.
That keeps the focus on performance, not nostalgia. Ragtime first debuted on Broadway in 1998, but this awards season has turned the revival into a current industry test: whether a demanding musical can stay fully booked, collect major awards attention and give a first-time nominee like Ross a platform big enough to matter.
