The Fantasticks: America's Longest-Running Play

Extremely readable story of how Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt came to write "The Fantasticks," the longest-running musical in history. Full of interesting back-stage stories and details on how the famous songs and lines came to be written. It's about the show, but it's also about the people who made it happen. It's a little portrait of life among theatre people and beatniks in late 1950s Greenwich Village.

There are many reasons America has fallen in love with this play. The most obvious being the story. It is a play bringing simple innocence into a seemingly scandelous love affair. It is a heart-warming musical not quickly to be forgotten. Yet, what i love most about the play is who Luisa is and can be made to be. Her monologue preceeding "Much More" has served me well in audition after audition and this play will go on as a classic in musical theatres everywhere. A must-read for play lovers.