Two performances from Sunday’s Super Bowl have captured the hearts of football fiends and Broadway babes alike. The first: a thrilling rendition of “America the Beautiful” by Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Jasmine Cephas Jones. With an addendum to the lyrics, the Hamilton Schuyler Sisters sent millions of people bursting into cheers after singing, “And crown thy good with brotherhood-- and sisterhood.”

 

Lady Gaga’s halftime show garnered similar exaltation. Surrounded by the sparkling Houston skyline and a twinkling starlight display, Lady Gaga dazzled as she opened with “God Bless America,” segued into “This Land is Your Land,” then declared “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” before (literally) diving into a medley of her chart-topping hits.

Tintypes is a musical ode to the turn-of-the-twentieth-century United States, so the use of patriotic music in Sunday’s nationwide event struck me as particularly punctuated with connections to the show. Along with standard likenesses between sports and theatre-- the performers, the stage, the audience, the ritual-- I also thought the structure of the event to be especially reminiscent of our production’s vaudevillian nature. Football may have been the Super Bowl’s main dish, but the music, the marching band, the cheerleaders, the commercials, and the wide array of performers and viewers were certainly of a vaudeville variety.

 

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As was exhibited that night, musical performances and political climates are frequently far from divorced. Even Gaga’s songs such as “Telephone” and “Born this Way” contain pointed reflections of today’s society. In the same vein, the direction we have taken in Tintypes rehearsals has focused heavily on the relationship of popular music to the culture that creates it.

 

Even before rehearsals began, the team dedicated their energy to thoroughly familiarizing themselves with the socio-historical contexts of the show’s music. Tintypes is a musical revue, so the weight of its content is carried in songs as opposed to a plot-based through-line. Holding together a structure of loosely connected scenes and snapshots, the tunes of Tin Pan Alley serve as more than a halftime show. The songs of Tintypes are key to the form of the production.

 

Just as integral to the structure and content of Tintypes is the influence of vaudeville. Dominating the theatre scene of the late 1800s / early 1900s, the vaudeville genre consisted of performers ranging from musicians and comics to dancers and acrobats. Multiple acts would make up one show, filling large and small stages with song, laughter, and awe. More than solely entertainment, however, vaudeville shows were an amalgamation of cultures. A genre most prevalent at the height of mass immigration, vaudeville shows represented a diverse mix of people celebrating one another in jest and joy.

 

The five characters of Tintypes represent five distinct backgrounds, but somehow, they find themselves crossing paths and joining forces to tell stories of a nation to which they all belong. As bleak as the reality of our country may currently be, I admittedly find it heartening to be able to witness glimpses of a divided nation united in song, even if only on stage.