The Fantasticks Reaches Record-Breaking 21,000 Performances | Playbill

News The Fantasticks Reaches Record-Breaking 21,000 Performances The long-running Off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks reaches an unsurpassed 21,000 performances Feb. 8, having played in New York City for a total of 52 years. The total number is cumulative from the original production and the revival.

The musical comedy – with music by Harvey Schmidt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones – first opened Off-Broadway in 1960, with an engagement that ran 17,162 performances through 2002 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. It re-opened in August 2006 and continues to play an open-ended run at the Jerry Orbach Theater just north of Times Square at Broadway and 50th Street.

The show contains two songs that have become standards, "Try To Remember" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain." The show, which is the longest-running musical in world history and the longest-running play of any kind in American history, had announced a closing in March 2015. The day before what would have been the final performance, producers Catherine Russell and Al Parinello announced that two anonymous fans of the show had stepped forward and offered financial resources to keep the show running.

The current cast of The Fantasticks includes Michael Halling as the Narrator (El Gallo), Daniel Berryman as The Boy (Matt), Samantha Bruce as The Girl (Luisa), William Thomas Evans as The Boy’s Father (Hucklebee), Dale Hensley as The Girl's Father (Bellomy), MacIntyre Dixon as The Old Actor (Henry), Michael Nostrand as The Man Who Dies (Mortimer) and Drew Seigla as The Mute. The production also features Tom Flagg, Rita Markova and Dave Schoonover.

Robert Felstein is the musical director/pianist, and Maria Banks is the harpist. Production stage manager is Paul Blankenship, and the assistant stage manager is John Thomas Waite.

The Fantasticks is "the quintessential story of a boy and girl who fall in love and then quickly grow apart when they realize they want to experience the world," state press notes. "What follows is a hilarious and heartwarming story appropriate for all ages."

Exclusive: A Trove of Rarely-Seen Photos of The Fantasticks

For more information and to purchase ticket, visit Fantasticksonbroadway.com.

 
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!