The duo, who created the long-running romantic musical, will be the recipients of the Inge Festival's Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award.

Jones and Schmidt will be honored during the festival's Tribute finale on April 25 at Independence Community College in Kansas.

"This legendary writing team is bold and adventurous in their work; funny and touching, enormously romantic and sentimental without being cloying," said Inge Center artistic director Peter Ellenstein in a statement. "They have a long line of marvelous, innovative musicals, and I'm excited to have the public gain greater knowledge of the breadth of shows by these phenomenal talents."

In addition to The Fantasticks, book writer and lyricist Tom Jones and composer Harvey Schmidt have created the musicals 110 in the Shade, I Do! I Do!, Celebration, Philemon, Mirette, Collette Collage and Grover's Corners.

Previous theatre artists honored by the festival include Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Wendy Wasserstein, John Guare, Horton Foote, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Neil Simon, Christopher Durang and Edward Albee. In addition, the Inge Festival has announced that former Old Globe associate artistic director Karen Carpenter will stage a series of unpublished one-acts by William Inge as part of the festival. Also presented during the festival will be a reading of Carolos Murillo's Diagram of a Paper Airplane.

A native of Independence, KS, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning writer William Inge is known for his works Picnic; Bus Stop; Come Back, Little Sheba; A Loss of Roses; and the semi-autobiographical The Dark At the Top of the Stairs. Inge won an Academy Award for his screenplay for "Splendor in the Grass."

The William Inge Theatre Festival is held at the playwright's alma mater, the Independence Community College. For more information on the Inge Festival and other Inge Center activities, contact (800) 842-6063, ext. 5835 or visit www.ingecenter.org.