Tintypes is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 revue

Revue

A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...

 conceived by Mary Kyte with Mel Marvin and Gary Pearle.

With its time frame set between the turn of the 20th century and the onset of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, this chamber piece with a cast of five provides a musical history lesson focusing on an exciting and tumultuous period in American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 history. During this time, the country's population doubled, expanded by increased immigration that changed the cultural and ethnic makeup of the nation. The transcontinental railroad

Transcontinental railroad

A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...

 and Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 were built, electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and the telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

 were introduced to homes, cowboy Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 became President of the United States

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

, automobiles joined horse-drawn carriages on city streets, and children worked in factories for twenty-five cents a day.

Tintypes opens with a quintessential immigrant, a mime eventually introduced to a variety of characters, including hopeful strivers and dream-filled achievers among the common folk and politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...

, radical Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....

, inventors Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...

 and Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

, and glamorous entertainer Anna Held

Anna Held

Helene Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband. -Early life:...

 among the famous.

The score, featuring works by George M. Cohan

George M. Cohan

George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....

, John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....

, Joseph E. Howard

Joseph E. Howard

Joseph E. Howard was a Broadway composer, lyricist, and librettist. His Broadway credits include The District Leader, The Land of Nod and The Song Birds, The Time, the Place and the Girl, The Flower of the Ranch, The Girl Question, Stubborn Cinderella, The Goddess of Liberty, Maurice Chevalier in...

, Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...

, and Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert

Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

, among others, is a blend of the patriotic songs, romantic tunes, and ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

 popular during the era.

The revue originally was produced by the Arena Stage

Arena Stage

Arena Stage is a not-for-profit regional theater based in Southwest Washington, D.C. Its declared mission"is to produce huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit. Arena has broad shoulders and a capacity to produce anything from vast epics...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. An off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 production opened on April 17, 1980 at the York Theatre, where it ran for 137 performances.

After eleven previews, the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production, directed by Pearle and choreographed by Kyte, opened on October 23, 1980 at the John Golden Theatre

John Golden Theatre

The John Golden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 252 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Designed in a Moorish style along with the adjacent Royale Theatre by architect Herbert J. Krapp for Irwin Chanin, it opened as the Theatre Masque on February 24 1927 with the play Puppets of Passion...

, where it ran for 93 performances. The cast was Lynne Thigpen

Lynne Thigpen

Cherlynne Theresa “Lynne” Thigpen was an American stage and television actress, most famous as "The Chief" in the various Carmen Sandiego television series.-Early life:...

, Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks is a German-born American stage and television director, and actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for directing The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me A Tenor, and Six Degrees of Separation and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and Drama...

, Trey Wilson

Trey Wilson

Donald Yearnsley "Trey" Wilson III was an American character actor known for playing rural, authoritarian type characters, most notably in comedies such as Raising Arizona and Bull Durham.-Early life:...

, Carolyn Mignini, and Mary Catherine Wright.

An original cast recording was released by DRG.

Songs

Act I

• Ragtime Nightingale
• The Yankee Doodle Boy
  The Yankee Doodle Boy
  "The Yankee Doodle Boy", also well known as " Yankee Doodle Dandy" is a patriotic song from the Broadway musical Little Johnny Jones written by George M. Cohan...
  
  
• Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay
  Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay
  "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay" is a vaudeville and music hall song, copyrighted by Henry J. Sayers, and introduced in Boston, Massachusetts in Tuxedo in 1891. The song was best known in the version sung by Lottie Collins in London music halls in 1892....
  
  
• I Don't Care
• Come Take a Trip in My Airship
• Kentucky Babe
• A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
  There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
  "A Hot Time in the Old Town" is an American ragtime song, composed in 1896 by Theodore August Metz with lyrics by Joe Hayden. Metz was the band leader of the McIntyre and Heath Minstrels....
  
  
• Stars and Stripes Forever
• Electricity
• El Capitan
  El Capitan (operetta)
  El Capitan is an operetta in three acts by John Philip Sousa and has a libretto by Charles Klein . The piece was Sousa's first successful operetta and his most successful stage work....
  
  
• Pastime Rag
• Meet Me in St. Louis
  Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis
  "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis", better known as just "Meet Me in St. Louis", is a popular song from 1904 which celebrated the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, i.e., the St. Louis World's Fair. The words were by Andrew B. Sterling; the music, by Kerry Mills. The song was published in 1904 in New York...
  
  
• Solace
• Waltz Me Around Again Willie
• Wabash Cannonball
  Wabash Cannonball
  "The Wabash Cannonball" is an American folk song about a fictional train, thought to have originated in the late nineteenth century. Its first documented appearance was on sheet music published in 1882, titled "" and credited to J. A. Roff...
  
  
• In My Merry Oldsmobile
  In My Merry Oldsmobile
  "In My Merry Oldsmobile" is a popular song from 1905, with music by Gus Edwards and lyrics by Vincent P. Bryan.The song's chorus is one of the most enduring automobile-oriented songs...
  
  
• Wayfaring Stranger
  The Wayfaring Stranger (song)
  "The Wayfaring Stranger" , Roud 3339, is a well-known American spiritual/folk song likely originating in the early 19th century about a plaintive soul on the journey through life. It became one of Burl Ives's signature songs, included on his 1944 album The Wayfaring Stranger...
  
  
• Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
  Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
  "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" is a traditional Negro spiritual.The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back to the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee...
  
  
• Aye, Lye, Lyu Lye
• I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
  I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
  I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen is a popular song written by Thomas P. Westendorf in 1875. In spite of its American origins, it is known and revered as an Irish ballad. Westendorf, a school teacher in Plainfield, Indiana, wrote it for his wife...
  
  
• America the Beautiful
  America the Beautiful
  "America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward....
  
  
• Wait for the Wagon
  Wait for the Wagon
  "Wait for the Wagon" is an American folk song, first popularized in the early 1850s."Wait for the Wagon" was first published as a parlor song in New Orleans, Louisiana, with an 1850 copyright, and music attributed to Wiesenthal and the lyrics to "a lady"...
  
  
• What It Takes to Make Me Love You, You've Got It
• The Maiden With the Dreamy Eyes
• If I Were on the Stage (Kiss Me Again)
• Shortnin' Bread
  Shortnin' Bread
  "Shortnin' Bread" is a song by James Whitcomb Riley.-History:...
  
  
• Nobody
  Nobody (1905 song)
  "Nobody" is a popular song with music by Bert Williams and lyrics by Alex Rogers, published in 1905.The song premiered in February 1906, in the Broadway production "Abyssinia." The show, which included live camels, premiered at the Majestic Theater and continued the string of hits for the...
  
  
• Elite Syncopations
• I'm Goin' to Live Anyhow, 'Til I Die

Act II

• The Ragtime Dance
  The Ragtime Dance
  "The Ragtime Dance" is a piece of ragtime music by Scott Joplin, first published in 1902.-Publication history:Although the piece was performed in Sedalia, Missouri on November 24, 1899, it wasn't published until 1902. John Stillwell Stark had announced the publication of "The Ragtime Dance" in...
  
  
• I Want What I Want When I Want It
• It's Delightful to Be Married
• Fifty-Fifty
• American Beauty
• Then I'd Be Satisfied With Life
• Narcissus
• Jonah Man
• When It's All Goin' Out and Nothin' Comin' In
• We Shall Not Be Moved
• Hello! Ma Baby
  Hello! Ma Baby
  "Hello! Ma Baby" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson . Its subject is a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone...
  
  
• Teddy Da Roose
• A Bird in a Gilded Cage
• Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey
  Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey
  " Bill Bailey", originally titled "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" is a popular song published in 1902. It is commonly referred to as simply "Bill Bailey"....
  
  
• She's Gettin' More Like the White Folks Every Day
• You're a Grand Old Flag
  You're a Grand Old Flag
  "You're a Grand Old Flag" is a patriotic song of the United States. The song, a spirited march written by George M. Cohan, is a tribute to the U.S. flag. In addition to obvious references to the flag, it incorporates snippets of other popular songs, including one of his own...
  
  
• The Yankee Doodle Boy (Reprise)
• Toyland
  Babes in Toyland (operetta)
  Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough , which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. The creators wanted to cash in on the extraordinary success of The Wizard of Oz,...
  
  
• Smiles

Nominations

• Tony Award
  Tony Award
  The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
  
   for Best Musical
• Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
• Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Thigpen)
• Drama Desk Award
  Drama Desk Award
  The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
  
  for Outstanding Musical
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical (Zaks)
• Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical (Mignini and Wright)
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical