Rumors of Ragtime’s Demise Were Pretty Much Right on Target

On Saturday, the Times’ Patrick Healy reported on recent scurrilous Internet rumors forecasting the imminent closure of Broadway’s Ragtime:


The producers say no investors have insisted on shuttering the show, which has been slow to catch on … And yet even admirers of this production of Ragtime are treating gossip about the show’s future as hard fact. Broadway works in strange ways, made even stranger by the Internet. On the most widely read theater blogs, people can anonymously post rumors and then watch the gossip turn viral, as it did on the All That Chat blog on talkinbroadway.com earlier this month, when various people claimed they had insider knowledge that Ragtime was closing imminently.

In a related story, the Times’ Patrick Healy reports today that Broadway’s Ragtime will close imminently. On Sunday, actually, which was also the same day the Post’s Michael Riedel said it would close in a column that ran December 2.

Revival of ‘Ragtime’ to Close Sunday [NYT]
Show Strives to Live Down Web-Driven Rumor Mill [NYT]
It’s white flag time [NYP]

Rumors of Ragtime’s Demise Were Pretty Much Right on Target