Pastor made his debut in variety in 1860 as a comic singer. He achieved acclaim when he
appeared at the American Concert Hall at 444 Broadway (known as the
In 1881 Pastor leased the Germania Theatre and renamed it Tony Pastor's New Fourteenth
Street Theatre, announcing that it would be
Pastor's legacy extended beyond
Scripts and actors' sides make up the bulk of the Tony Pastor Collection which documents much of Pastor's career as a theater manager and, to a lesser extent, as a performer, 1861-1908 (bulk 1866-1890). The collection is organized into eight series: I. Scripts and Actors' Sides, 1866-1883 (18.5 boxes), II. Instrumental and Vocal Parts, nd (3.5 boxes), III. Song Lyrics, ca. 1880s (2.5 boxes), IV. Financial Journals, 1882-1894 (1.5 boxes), V. Programs, 1890-1894 (2 boxes, 1 oversize folder), VI. Scrapbooks, 1885-1908 (6.5 boxes, 1 oversize folder), VII. Sheet Music, 1878-1897 (0.5 box), and VIII. Miscellaneous, 1861-1902 (2 boxes). Within each series, material is arranged alphabetically by title of work or chronologically where appropriate.
Series I contains autograph scripts and actors' sides (a script with the dialogue for
one actor) for more than one hundred sketches, burlesques, and pantomimes dating from
Pastor's earliest days as the manager of Tony Pastor's Opera House in 1866 on up to his
heyday at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in the 1880s. The range of topics is narrow,
with rags to riches stories and abductions being common. Many scripts include
African-American, Irish, and German characters. Almost every item in the series contains
the notation
Many of the sketches that were performed in Tony Pastor's theaters included songs,
overtures, and finales, and Pastor himself sang his topical songs regularly. The
Instrumental and Vocal Parts Series contains autograph instrumental and vocal parts for
six sketches and over two hundred songs. Some of the songs may have been interpolated
into sketches, while others, like the topical songs, were performed as a single
Supplementing the scripts and music parts, the Song Lyrics Series comprises autograph, typed, and printed lyrics for about sixty songs, most from later in Pastor's career. Parodies of popular songs are common. A scrapbook, ca. 1889, contains lyrics for about forty-five songs written by Tony Pastor, Charles Osborne, Felix McGlennon, and others. They are frequently annotated by Pastor. The series also contains two boxes of printed lyrics in the form of song sheets that were meant to be sold to theater patrons.
The Financial Journals Series is divided into Subseries A. Touring Companies, 1882-1887,
and Subseries B. Fourteenth Street Theatre, 1886-1894, arranged chronologically within
the subseries. The season for Pastor's traveling troupe ran from April to October and
included stops in small towns and large metropolitan areas in the American Northeast and
Midwest. The journals contain detailed daily entries on receipts and the amount spent on
advertising, properties, salaries, carriages, and the like. Also given is non-financial
information such as the name of the hall, the agent, the
The Programs Series comprises over one hundred weekly programs for the Fourteenth Street Theatre, 1890-1894, and two copies of an undated playbill.
The Scrapbooks Series, 1885-1908, contains publicity materials: advertisements for upcoming shows, reviews, and promotional articles about Pastor or the acts appearing at his theater. The series is subdivided into two subseries, Touring Companies and Fourteenth Street Theatre. In two of the New York scrapbooks, the clippings are organized by newspaper. A special anniversary scrapbook contains clippings regarding Pastor's twenty-fifth anniversary in theater in March 1890. Clippings were taken from the
Series VII contains sheet music for music hall songs published between 1878 and 1897. Much of the sheet music was given to Pastor as a complimentary copy by the lyricist, composer, or singer who popularized the song; hence, nearly half of the songs bear an inscription by variety performer Lillie Western. The songs were written by E. Jonghmans, Frederick Bowyer, Harry Adams, T. S. Lonsdale, Felix McGlennon, Harry Randall, Joseph Tabrar, and others. The series is arranged by song title; dates in brackets in the folder list indicate date of inscription, not publication.
The Miscellaneous Series contains a managers' report book with typed evaluations of vaudeville acts that appeared in 1902 in New York, the Midwest, and Washington, D.C. The often candid appraisals were written by theater managers judging the success of their own acts. The series also contains two notebooks, one from 1861 with a partial script in Pastor's hand, and the other containing undated lyrics for speaker and chorus in another hand.
For a fuller description of the collection, see:
Kattwinkel, Susan.
For an analysis of selected scripts in the collection, see also:
Kattwinkel, Susan.
Information regarding the scripts in Series I, including plot synopses, is available in an earlier finding aid in the Reading Room.
Abbreviations in the Folder List
Purchase, 1984
Open for research. Scrapbooks in boxes 33-36 are fragile do not circulate without curatorial permission.
Helen Baer, 1999
Elsewhere in the Ransom Center are photographs, articles, programs, songs, posters, correspondence, and other materials relating to Tony Pastor, which are located in the Variety Performers Collection. Researchers may also wish to consult playbill and scrapbook holdings in the Performing Arts Collection. Other Pastor papers are located at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Collection.