Some people are put off by the mixing of art and politics. For everyone else, the musical “Ragtime’’ will be playing at the city-owned Strand Theatre in Dorchester from Sept. 28 to Oct. 7.

Neither the selection of the play nor the choice of venue in a low-income Boston neighborhood happened by accident. The itinerant Fiddlehead Theatre Company and the American Civil Liberties Union, the play’s chief sponsor, figured smartly that the weeks leading up to a presidential election would be a pivotal time for a show exploring the impacts of immigration, poverty, race, and poor working conditions.