"The Fantasticks" opens at the Legacy Theatre

Around this time last year I decided to do an entire season of musicals at the Legacy Theatre. While we have done musicals in the past, "Chicago" almost killed us and "Company" almost lead me to kill someone else, we had never done back-to-back musicals and never an entire season. I was apprehensive to say the least. In quick order "The Marvelous Wonderette's" was a wonderful experience and surprisingly easy. "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" was your typical musical revue and a nice show. "The World Goes Round" proved to be a very difficult show and put up a great fight, but I thought the cast pulled it off. "The Fantasticks" opens this Saturday night...and for the first time all year we got back to theatre...I mean real theatre. I am not a big fan of musicals and what Broadway is doing now with Disney and Movies and turning everything into the "new musical" is a joke. It's not theatre, its spectacle. “Fantasticks” was different.

Consider:

The Fantasticks premiered at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, a small off-Broadway theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village, on May 3, 1960, with Jerry Orbach as El Gallo, Rita Gardner as Luisa, Kenneth Nelson as Matt, and librettist Tom Jones (under a pseudonym) as the Old Actor, among the cast members. The sparse set and semicircular stage created an intimate and immediate effect. The play is highly stylized and combines old-fashioned showmanship, classic musical theatre, commedia dell'arte and Noh theatrical traditions. The original production was directed by Word Baker and was produced on a very low budget. The producers spent $900 on the set[15] and $541 on costumes, at a time when major Broadway shows would cost $250,000. The original set designer, costumer, prop master, and lighting designer was Ed Wittstein, who performed all four jobs for a total of only $480 plus $24.48 a week. The set was similar to that for Our Town; Wittstein designed a raised stationary platform anchored by six poles.[15] It resembled a traveling players' wagon, like a pageant wagon. As for a curtain, he hung various small false curtains across the platform at various times during the play. He also made a sun/moon out of cardboard. One side was painted bright yellow (the sun) and the other was black with a crescent of white (the moon). The sun/moon was hung from a nail in one of the poles and is referred to in the libretto. The orchestra consists of a piano and sometimes also a harp, with the harpist also sometimes playing some percussion instruments.

The production closed on January 13, 2002, after 17,162 performances. It is the world's longest-running musical and the longest-running uninterrupted show of any kind in the United States. Other notable actors who appeared in the off-Broadway and touring production throughout its long run included Liza Minnelli, Elliott Gould, F. Murray Abraham, Glenn Close, Keith Charles, Kristin Chenoweth, Bert Convy, Eileen Fulton, Lore Noto (the show's long-time producer), Dick Latessa, and Martin Vidnovic.

This show was legendary and more over deservedly so. It is a masterpiece of innovative and creative thinking and at its very heart, charming and heartwarming. It is what all theatre should strive to be. It does not depend on sets, special effects, fantastical costuming or over-the-top production design. It’s simplicity in its greatest form. The story takes center stage and it is up to the handful of actors to present it. The hardest part about the show is not getting in its way! Let it breath and take flight and you will be fine. Trust the story. You all remember story, right? It’s what we’re in the business for. We are story tellers be it film, stage, television or YouTube! We tell stories and “The Fantasticks” tells a beautiful tale.

48 hours out I’m still not sure where we are but we’re close. We’re getting there. But, its theatre and theatre is suppose to be hard. I picked this show to conclude the season because of this. I knew the show demanded a great deal of focus and creativity and it would put up a fight. It’s a heavyweight, a theatrical masterpiece that demands no less than your utmost respect and your best shot.

The show opens this Saturday night and runs two weekends (November 15-16-22-23) If you are around the North Hills looking for a night of special effects, rehashed story or cutting edge technology…go to a movie! Stay at home and watch another super hero movie…or anything on network TV! If, however, you’d like to look back at what good theatre and storytelling is drop by the Legacy Theatre. If you don’t see the show here, try to catch it somewhere…it is really worth your time. Promise.

“Without a hurt, the heart is hollow.”

Come on! That’s a log line!!