Epilogue: Ragtime (Reprise) / Wheels of a Dream (Reprise)

[LITTLE BOY, spoken]
The era of ragtime had run out, as if history were no more than a tune on a player piano. But we did not know that then.

[YOUNGER BROTHER, spoken]
After Coalhouse Walker's death, Younger Brother drove south to Mexico, where he joined the great peasant revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata.

[ENSEMBLE]
La, la la la la

[EMMA GOLDMAN, spoken]
The signs of the coming World War were everywhere. The anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested again, of course, but this time she would be deported as well.

[ENSEMBLE]
Ooh, ooh

[BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, spoken]
Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute became, in time, the center of black America. When he died, flags were flown at half-mast. President and Mrs. Wilson attended his funeral.

[ENSEMBLE]
La, la la la la

[GRANDFATHER, spoken]
Grandfather resided now in a cemetery. At last, peace and quiet.

[EVELYN NESBIT, spoken]
The passionate and beautiful Evelyn Nesbit would lose her looks and fall into obscurity. Whee!

[HARRY HOUDINI, spoken]
Harry Houdini was hanging upside down high over Times Square when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo.

[LITTLE BOY, spoken]
Warn the Duke!

[HOUDINI, spoken]
A little boy's words suddenly rang clear to the great illusionist. It would be the one genuine mystical experience of his life. But it was too late. The world was already at war.

[FATHER, spoken]
When the Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-boat off the southwest coast of Ireland during the Great War, twelve hundred men, women and children lost their lives. And among them, Father.

[MOTHER, spoken]
Mother wore black for a year. At the end of this time, Tateh proposed and she accepted. She adored him.

[LITTLE BOY, spoken]
They moved to California.

[LITTLE GIRL, spoken]
They were now a family.

[LITTLE BOY, spoken]
They felt blessed.

[TATEH, spoken]
One afternoon, watching his children play, Tateh had an idea for a movie: a bunch of children. White, Black, Christian, Jew, rich, poor... all kinds... a gang, a crazy gang getting into trouble, getting out of trouble, but together despite their differences. He was sure it would make a wonderful movie—a dream of what this country could be. He would be first in line to see it.

[COALHOUSE]
I see his face

[SARAH]
I hear his heartbeat

[COALHOUSE & SARAH]
I look in those eyes
How wise they seem

[MOTHER, TATEH, COALHOUSE, SARAH & ENSEMBLE]
Well, when he is old enough
I will show him America
And he will ride
Our son will ride
On the wheels of a dream