Everything you need to know about 'The Fantasticks' on Broadway

The Fantasticks is a romantic tale about two young people, Matt and Lewis, who fall in love despite a feud between their moms. However, the moms manufactured the "hostility" because they want their kids to fall in love, and they believe that reverse psychology is the best way to make it happen!

The Fantasticks originally centered on a boy and girl, Matt and Luisa, and their fathers instead of two boys and their mothers. In that version, a bandit, El Gallo, is hired to kidnap Luisa so Matt can rescue her heroically. After various adventures, the two return home with a more mature understanding of love.

The story is loosely inspired by The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac) and features elements of Ovid’s "Pyramus and Thisbe" from the Metamorphoses, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Donizetti’s opera The Elixir of Love – basically, all the stories about star-crossed lovers!

The Fantasticks is at the Hayes Theater, located at 240 W. 44th St. and operated by Second Stage Theater. Named for actress Helen Hayes, this venue, appropriately for a show that thrived off Broadway, is Broadway’s most intimate playhouse with 597 seats across two levels.

Recent shows there include Second Stage's productions of Purpose, Marjorie Prime, and Becky Shaw. The Fantasticks will be succeeded by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Gloria in March 2027.

The running time for The Fantasticks is to be confirmed, but previous productions ran about 2 hours, including an intermission.

The age recommendation for The Fantasticks is to be confirmed. Please note that children under 4 are not permitted in Broadway theatres.

The Fantasticks is set to run on Broadway from October 3, 2026 to February 7, 2027. The show generally has eight performances a week, with two shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays and no performances on Mondays.

The standard schedule is subject to one-off changes, particularly around holidays. Visit our Fantasticks page for a complete performance calendar.

The Fantasticks’ premiered as a one-act musical at Barnard College in 1959. The two-act version premiered at Off-Broadway’s Sullivan Street Playhouse on May 3, 1960. The original cast was led by Jerry Orbach (El Gallo), Rita Gardner (Luisa), and Kenneth Nelson (Matt).

The Fantasticks ran until January 13, 2002, playing 17,162 performances. It remains the world’s longest-running musical. An Off-Broadway revival played from August 2006 to June 2017 at The Theater Center, racking up an additional 4,390 performances.

The Broadway production starts performances October 22, 2026 at the Hayes Theater.

The Fantasticks features music by Harvey Schmidt and a book and lyrics by Tom Jones — not the Welsh pop star! The pair met at the University of Texas at Austin. Schmidt and Jones's other Broadway collaborations include 110 in the Shade (1963) and I Do! I Do! (1966).

For this new, gender-swapped revival, Jones revised his script for The Fantasticks himself before his death in 2023.

Casting for The Fantasticks is to be announced. The original production provided Jerry Orbach (El Gallo) with his first lead role, so perhaps this production will also make new stars.

The Fantasticks feature the following main characters. The genders of select characters are changed for the 2026 revival, and this list will be updated with any further character changes that are announced.

• El Gallo: A bandit and the narrator.
• Matt: A young man in love with Lewis.
• Lewis: A young man in love with Matt. In the original Fantasticks, this character is named Luisa.
• Hucklebee: Matt’s mother. This character and Bellomy are fathers instead of mothers in the original version.
• Bellomy: Lewis’s mother.
• Henry: An old actor.
• Mortimer: A man who dies.
• The Mute: An actor who also plays the Wall.

The score of The Fantasticks features popular showtunes including "Try to Remember" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain." This song list will be updated if numbers are reordered or removed for the 2026 revival.

Act 1

• Overture
• "Try to Remember"
• "Much More"
• "Metaphor"
• "Never Say No"
• "It Depends On What You Pay"
• "Soon It's Gonna Rain"
• "Rape Ballet" (or "Abduction Ballet")
• "Happy Ending"

Act 2

• "This Plum Is Too Ripe"
• "I Can See It"
• "Plant a Radish"
• "Round and Round"
• "They Were You"
• "Try to Remember"

Thirty-one years after The Fantasticks opened Off Broadway, it received the non-competitive Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991.

Michael Ritchie directed a Fantasticks movie musical in 1995, but it wasn't released until 2000 after heavy editing. Joey McIntyre (of New Kids on the Block fame) and Jean Louisa Kelly starred as Matt and Luisa, with Joel Grey as Luisa’s father.

Additionally, the Hallmark Hall of Fame broadcast an abbreviated version of the show on October 18, 1964, cutting out the roles of the old actor and Mortimer.

The Fantasticks has a long and fascinating history. Learn more about the storied show below.

• Tom Jones first worked on the show at the University of New Mexico in 1956, where he envisioned it as a western titled Joy Comes to Deadhorse.
• When The Fantasticks was first performed in 1960, the concept of “Off-Broadway” was less than 20 years old. Schmidt and Jones were encouraged by the 1954 revival of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, which showed that an Off-Broadway production could be both artistically and commercially successful.
• Barbra Streisand auditioned for Luisa but didn’t get the part. However, she recorded “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” and “Much More” on her debut solo record The Barbra Streisand Album in 1963.
• The show’s most famous song, “Try to Remember,” had chart success when it was recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips in a medley with Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” in 1975.
• The Fantasticks has been performed in all 50 states and 67 countries, plus at the White House. It even toured Vietnam from 1969-70 with a cast of military personnel as part of the U.S. Army Special Services program.
• Other recent gender-swapped musical revivals include director Marianne Elliott’s Company and the reimagined Andrew Lloyd Webber production Cats: The Jellicle Ball.

Get The Fantasticks tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Try to remember... to secure your seats for this iconic show's limited run on Broadway in a way it's never been seen in NYC before.