The romantic tickers
The Romanticker (English: The Fantasticks ) is an off-Broadway musical from 1960 by Harvey Schmidt (music) and Tom Jones (lyrics and libretto).
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The main characters are Matt and Louise, who are in love with each other and come from neighboring and quarreling families. Both fathers even built a great wall between their properties.
Origin and performance history
The basic idea of the piece goes back to the romance Les Romanesques of the French poet and playwright Edmond Rostand from 1894.
The first performance of the musical took place on May 3, 1960 at the off-Broadway theater Sullivan Street Playhouse. The producer was Laura Noto. Among the actors in the first cast were Jerry Orbach, Rita Gardner, Kenneth Nelson, William Lerson and Tom Jones himself. The cast is limited to seven male and one female roles. The instruments used are a piano, a harp (or a second piano), drums and a double bass.
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The original production of the musical reached a running time of 42 years with the performance on January 12, 2002 (which was considered the 17,162nd performance). The Fantesticks thus achieved a world record for the duration of the presentation and the number of performances in the original production. During this time, performances took place in all US states and 76 other countries.
Film adaptations
Two films are based on the original of this musical: the first came out in 1964 (directed by George Schaefer , with John Davidson , Stanley Holloway , Bert Lahr , Ricardo Montalbán and Susan Watson ) and the second in 1995 (directed by Michael Ritchie , with Joel Gray , Brad Sullivan , Jean Louisa Kelly , Barnard Hughes , Jonathan Morris and Joey McIntyre ).