Little Tramp

Little Tramp is a musical with a book by David Pomeranz and Steven David Horwich and music and lyrics by David Pomeranz.

Based on the life of comedian Charles Chaplin and named after his most famous character, it opens at the 1971 Academy Awards ceremony at which the aging star, long exiled from the United States, is about to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. The trajectory of the impressive professional career and turbulent private life that leads to this moment is traced via flashbacks in which Chaplin recalls his introduction to Hollywood and silent movies, his failed marriages and problems with the press, his dealings with the FBI, and the creation of his most beloved character, the iconic Little Tramp.

In 1992, in order to create interest in a staged production, Pomeranz gathered together what he referred to as his "dream cast" and recorded a CD of the score. Artists participating in the project included Petula Clark, Lea Salonga, Tim Curry, Mel Brooks, Treat Williams, and Peter Duncan as Chaplin. It was released on the Warner Music UK Ltd. label.

Little Tramp received its first staging in 1995 at the prestigious Eugene O'Neill Theater Festival in Waterford, Connecticut (Eugene O'Neill having been the father of Chaplin's wife, Oona O'Neill). The following year, a concert version was presented in St. Petersburg, Russia to inaugurate the world's first East/West Musical Theater Conference.

The show was first performed in the UK by Imagine Production in Preston and was endorsed by Richard Attenborough, director of the biopic Chaplin.