Robert Ayres Barnet or R. A. Barnet (1853-1933) was an American musical theatre lyricist in New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He wrote lyrics for 1492 and Excelsior Jr. Collaborators included Robert Melville Baker,George Whitefield Chadwick, Edward Warren Corliss,Louis F. Gottschalk, Harry Lawson Heartz, David Kilburn Stevens, Lewis Sabin Thompson, and George Lowell Tracy. He belonged to the Boston Cadets, and contributed to the group's amateur theatricals. For example, his Jack and the Beanstock premiered in 1896 at Boston's Tremont Theatre. It was performed by the "Boston Cadets, who always present Barnet's pieces before they are staged professionally. The new piece is ... a fairy Mother Goose burlesque. The music is by A.B. Sloane. ... Augustus Pitou, Klaw & Erlanger, E.E. Rice, and other prominent gentlemen" attended. The female impersonator Julian Eltinge appeared in the early shows. Barnet died in New York in 1933.
Burlesque Opera of Tabasco, 1894
Boston Cadets' production of Barnet's Simple Simon, 1897
"Bugaboo Man," New York World, 1900
Miladi and the Musketeer, 1901
Miss Pocahontas: an Indian War-Whoop in Two Whoops, 1906