Jean Schwartz · aftercurtain

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Lifting the Lid

Music · Musical · 1905

Lifting the Lid is a musical in four scenes with music by Jean Schwartz, lyrics by William Jerome, and a book by John J. McNally. The musical was a spoof of New York City politics of the early 20th century, and included impersonations of both political figures and other personalities of the period. The Manhattan district attorney William Travers Jerome was particularly lampooned as the musical's central character, district attorney William T. G. Rome, was a send up of Jerome and performed in an uncanny impersonation by the actor Julius Tannen.

The Ham Tree

Music · Musical · 1905

Setting: Marion, North Carolina (Act 1); the Dover, Delaware region (Act 2); and New York City (Act 3) McIntyre and Heath reprised their well known African-American characters of Alexander Hambletonian (McIntyre) and Henry Jones (Heath) which they had previously portrayed in minstrel shows and in vaudeville. Played as "lovable tramps and scamps", the first act begins with the characters stranded in a small North Carolina town where Hambletonian pretends to be a Raja and Heath his chief minister in order to obtain free room and board at a local establishment. The second act finds the pair having a series of mis-adventures by a railroad track and in a dark wood where they are desperately seeking food; ultimately discovering a tree that grows hams. The final act brings the pair into the palatial New York City mansion of Lawrence Nickelbacker and his autocratic wife, Mrs. Nickelbacker; a house located on Fifth Avenue. The villain of the piece is the English Lord Spotcash, and the work's loose plot also included a man of mystery, Sherlock Baffles.

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