Tintypes

Tintypes
Original Cast Recording
Music	arranged by: Mel Marvin
Lyrics	Various
Book	Mel Marvin Gary Pearle
Productions	1980 Broadway

Tintypes is a musical revue 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, this chamber piece with a cast of five provides a musical history lesson focusing on an exciting and tumultuous period in American 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 and Carnegie Hall were built, electricity and the telephone were introduced to homes, cowboy Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States, 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 William Jennings Bryan, radical Emma Goldman, inventors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and glamorous entertainer Anna Held among the famous.

The score, featuring works by George M. Cohan, John Philip Sousa, Joseph E. Howard, Scott Joplin, and Victor Herbert, among others, is a blend of the patriotic songs, romantic tunes, and ragtime popular during the era.