See The Tramp for the character played by Charlie Chaplin. 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, The Tramp, 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 Productions in Preston, and was endorsed by Richard Attenborough, director of the biopic Chaplin. Synopsis At the 1971 Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, an 82-year-old Charlie Chaplin is about to receive a special Life Achievement award. 20 years earlier, Charlie had been barred from re-entry into the United States on the grounds that he was a Communist ("In America Again"). Charlie looks back at his life. His mother, a failed music hall performer, trying to make ends meet to support little Charlie and his older brother Sydney, reminds her sons that they have something more than mere material possessions ("Something No One Can Ever Take Away"). Not able to support her children, Hannah Chaplin is taken to the workhouse. The boys try selling their old clothing on the streets but there are no takers. Hungry and heartbroken, Sydney tries to cheer things up ("When the World Stops