In 1997, Brandon Uranowitz was a 10-year-old from West Orange, N.J., who dreamed of being on Broadway. He got one small foot in the door that year when he replaced Paul Dano as the wide-eyed little boy Edgar in the musical “Ragtime” during its premiere in Toronto.
A year later, “Ragtime” opened on Broadway, and the musical — about three families navigating America at the turn of the 20th century, based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel — featured most of the Toronto cast, a powerhouse roster that included Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Peter Friedman, Marin Mazzie and Lea Michele. But Uranowitz wasn’t chosen to make the move. (Alex Strange was cast in the role instead.)
That disappointment remains an “open wound,” Uranowitz, 38, said.
“It was just, see ya, thanks for coming,” he added. “It felt unfinished.”
Uranowitz eventually got to Broadway, making his debut in the short-lived musical “Baby It’s You!” and later appearing in “Falsettos,” “An American in Paris” and other shows. Last season, he won a Tony Award for his role in Tom Stoppard’s play “Leopoldstat.”
Starting Wednesday, Uranowitz hopes to finally close that open wound when “Ragtime” is revived, not on Broadway but at City Center, where Lear DeBessonet’s new production is to begin performances. And Uranowitz, returning to the show for the first time since his Toronto run, will play the Jewish immigrant father-protector Tateh, the role for which Friedman received a Tony nomination.
The revival, which continues through Nov. 10, also stars Joshua Henry, Nichelle Lewis and Caissie Levy and, as the labor activist Emma Goldman, the Tony-winning composer Shaina Taub (“Suffs”).
During a recent rehearsal break at City Center, Uranowitz became emotional as he talked about revisiting “Ragtime” — which won four Tony Awards, including for Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Aherns’s score and for Terrence McNally’s book — and what the show, and time, has taught him about the business of Broadway and the need for self-care. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What does it mean for you to be in “Ragtime” after all these years?
I’m feeling a lot of things, mostly gratitude, mostly luck. I have a complicated relationship with this show. When I did it, it represented the achievement of the ultimate dream. In the end it represented the shattering of those dreams. It taught me at an early age what this business can do to a person, the highs and lows and the projected mania that it puts on actors at a really young age. I haven’t talked about it until recently. I harbored a lot of shame around it.
Why?
I’m only now starting to unpack it. They were doing things to me physically to make me fit the role. They were bleaching my hair and my eyebrows twice a week. There was this effort to hide my true identity behind this character. The reasons for me being demoted, for lack of a better term, were either I was too Jewish or I wasn’t good enough. Both of those options are deeply shameful for a kid, and for me even now as an actor.
I feel like this word gets thrown around a lot, but there was a trauma attached to that experience that has followed me throughout my career. They offered me the understudy, something I found out later, but I think my parents felt to be demoted in that way and not be onstage, it just didn’t seem worth it to them. They told me you’re just not going to Broadway, which I realize now was the smart parenting decision.
Do you have a memory of watching the show backstage as a kid?
I would be offstage right waiting to come on, and I would always see Audra come into the wings stage left. She would crouch down to emotionally prep. She would come on all disheveled, tears streaming down her face and it was so real and raw. I never forgot it.
When I was doing “Leopoldstat” I found myself, before the final act, crouching down and getting myself prepped for that. [Pause, as he begins to tear up.] It didn’t occur to me for a while that I learned from her just by watching.
Now you’re in a starring role.
To be back in it now in a role that is so aligned with who I am after going through a very circuitous journey around my Jewish identity, finally reaching a place where I’m really proud of it — this feels very healing for me.
How is it healing?
It’s just that I knew on some cosmic level that I would come back to it, especially because there’s a role like Tateh. I think the healing is specifically around my Jewish identity. They were trying to de-Jew, un-Jew me, physically. On top of that, my family belonged to a conservative temple growing up, and I was in the closet [about being gay], hiding this other part of my identity that didn’t seem to align with my Jewish identity. I’m coming into this now with pride.
Immigrant experiences and antisemitism are central through lines in “Ragtime.” They are also very much still in the headlines.
The gift of this show is it’s timeless. There are so many themes in it — police brutality, immigration — that are present right now. We will be doing it during the election, which feels hot and volatile but absolutely necessary. I can’t imagine doing anything else at this time.
The fact that Kamala Harris has made her [unofficial] slogan “we’re not going back” and the 11 o’clock number of this show is a woman saying “we can never go back to before” — it just feels prescient.
What would your younger self think of you now?
He would say, good for you for sticking with it. [He pauses as tears fill his eyes.] I think he’d be really proud. It’s hard for me to be proud of myself often. This business is brutal. But I’m grateful for having learned it at a young age. This show is just very important for me to do. I don’t think I realized how much I needed it.
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