The Columbia Children’s Theatre has earned a reputation for producing challenging works for its young participants. This week’s staging of “Ragtime” continues that tradition.

Written by the award-winning composer and lyricist team of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (“Once on This Island,” “Seussical” and “Lucky Stiff”), along with noted playwright Terrence McNally, it’s based on the E.L. Doctorow’s novel. The musical took home 1998 Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book and Best Orchestrations, and both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score.

With themes that revolve around wealth and poverty, racism and immigration, “Ragtime” is just as relevant and timely now, it seems. Set in the volatile melting pot of turn-of-the-century New York, three distinctly American tales are woven together — that of a stifled upper-class wife, a determined Jewish immigrant and a daring young Harlem musician. Together, they confront history’s timeless contradictions of freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, and what it means to live in America.

“We specifically pick harder things for our teen group because many of them are already doing the standard productions at school already,” said Artistic Director Jerry Stevenson. “With us, they get to do things that are meaty, difficult and that help them stretch beyond the classics.”

The production runs Nov. 11-13, with performances at the Harbison Theatre at Midlands Tech (7300 College St. in Irmo) on Thursday (7 p.m.), Friday (7 p.m.) and Saturday (2 and 7 p.m.). Tickets range from $5 to $10. Find more info at

The Children’s Theatre maintains its space at the Richland Fashion Mall in Forest Acres, but COVID-19 complicated the performance hall aspect of the operation. With the mall itself closed down and no way to easily enter, it has been relegated to rehearsal and class use.

With no dedicated performance hall, it was forced to take the show on the road, which has produced positive results. In what Sevensen called “the moveable feast” season, the Children’s Theatre has pushed more programming to Lexington County. The opening show was held at the Columbia Music Festival Association downtown, but the children’s “Frozen” production was staged at Meadow Glen Middle School in Lexington, and the next two shows will join “Ragtime” in being produced at the Harbison Theatre in Irmo.

“The byproduct of the moveable feast for us is going to be growth, and exposure to more and different people,” Stevenson said. “They got to see what we were doing at Meadow Glen when we rehearsed there during the school day, for example, and we had several auditions from that school for our next show. Different people will see the shows while we are out at Harbison who might not have come into Forest Acres.”

Doing shows away from the mall has had other benefits, too.

“Not having audiences, we were able to convert the lobby into additional shop space, so that we have several things going on at once,” Stevenson said. “While we are in active rehearsals for one show, the set can be in production for the next show at the same time.”

The Children’s Theatre is exploring more options and other spaces for next season as well, and Stevenson reported they are still growing despite the pandemic pause of 2020 and 2021.

“We’re seeing exponential growth since COVID, so much so that we are having to subdivide our age groups into multiple groups to keep serving the growing numbers we are seeing,” he offered. “We’re also getting back to the pace we are accustomed to with the number of shows we are doing. Our annual Christmas shows will add back morning showings for school classes as well, continuing our mission of exposing as many young people as possible to live theater.”

The Children’s Theatre offers main stage productions, youth theater, and what they call the PB&J Players, an under-12 group that does popular fare such as “Frozen,” a production it recently completed.

The wide range of ages involved allows for some collaboration as well.

“In the summer season we sometimes will combine the two groups if we need to for a production,” Stevenson said. “We did ‘Mary Poppins’ that way. But they can also do separate shows, as they did when the teens did ‘Chicago’ and the kids did ‘Oliver!’”