ABSTRACT
The Fantasticks is a product unique to its time and sensibilities. It never wanted nor needed to be anything other than what it was. It never considered a Broadway transfer. It’s original 154-seat, low-ceiling theater gave the audience the opportunity to catch every intimate nuance, and not miss the blink of an eye. When The Fantasticks premiered in 1960, Greenwich Village, New York was in its downtown bohemian prime. Beatniks in Black turtlenecks and berets abounded. The Off-Broadway musical at that time was largely small topical revues. It all started for Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt when they were hired by revered Broadway actress, Mildred Dunnock, then a professor at Barnard College, to write a one act musical for a three play, five performance series summer theatre at the school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The Fantasticks had indeed opened the door to many such courageous small musicals that also dared to be different.
