Fantasticks, The, holds the record as the longest-running show in American theater history. The musical comedy opened off-Broadway in New York City on May 3, 1960, and closed on Jan. 13, 2002, after 17,162 performances. It reopened off-Broadway on Aug. 21, 2006, and closed on June 4, 2017, after an additional 4,390 performances.
Harvey Schmidt composed the music for The Fantasticks, and Tom Jones wrote the dialogue and lyrics. They adapted the story from Les Romanesques (1894), a play about young love by the French dramatist Edmund Rostand.
The Fantasticks follows Matt and Luisa, a young man and woman who live next door to each other. Their fathers try to bring them together by pretending to keep them apart. The young people are filled with romantic notions of love and must face the harsh realities of life before they can appreciate each other. The story is told by a character named El Gallo, who also sings the score’s most famous song, “Try to Remember.” Other popular songs are “Much More” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.”
The Fantasticks is an intimate musical, with only a few characters and almost no scenery. The humor and whimsy of the show and its simple staging have made it popular with small regional theaters.
