DR ELMORE,
For those of us relatively new to HHW, could you fill us in? Or maybe some other H/K would do so in your honor?
DR Jeanne, my love for THE FANTASTICKS goes back to 1964, my 17th summer. I had discovered THREEPENNY OPERA and it was the last production for the season at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park, directed by Word Baker, who directed THE FANTASTICKS and was then director of the Playhouse. In the Programme there was a note that THE FANTASTICKS would be added to the season and open the following week (the Macheath, Polly, and one of the gang had all been Off-Broadway replacements in the show and this would be THE FANTASTICKS' second appearance in Cincinnati; in fact, the old Playhouse had the same seating arrangement as The Sullivan Street Theatre). I knew nothing of the show, but the Tom McElfrish (??) review in the
Cincinnati Enquirer was titled "Life Is Just A Bowl Of Charades" and I was intrigued, so I bought tickets for the same friends with whom I'd seen THREEPENNY OPERA. The first Saturday of September 1964, about a week before my 18th birthday, I saw Act One of THE FANTASTICKS, bought the recording at intermission, saw Act Two, and went home to play the recording several times before morning. Within a month, I owned the vocal score, and within two months, I played it every day in a rehearsal studio at Miami University. Between 1964 and 1972, I played harpsichord (harpists cost too much) for one production, saw three or four others including an over-produced revival by Word Baker as a Christmas treat in the huge new Playhouse in the Park theatre, Sometime around 1978, I finally directed the show and ended up playing the Old Actor because I couldn't find another, and DR Ginny played The Mute, because DR Ginny doesn't have the vocal chops to play Luisa. DR Ginny is an adequate singer but one of the finest actresses, amateur or professional, I've ever worked with.
When I got to New York, in 1979, I finally saw several times the original Sullivan Street staging of THE FANTASTICKS, and I always left the theatre feeling I was 18 again. It still happens now. In 1992, I started working with BK, and through him, I met Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. One of my favorite projects was COLETTE COLLAGE, and It led me to score MIRETTE with Harvey and Tom at Goodspeed in 1998. The score was good, the libretto not so much, and outside of a sloppy horn player, I had a wonderful band. I was also lucky to stay in the same house for 6 weeks with Harvey, Tom, Tom's wife Janet, and their sons Sam and Mike, whom I now regard as godchildren. When I had major surgery in 1999, Janet told the doctors she was my sister, and when I woke up in recovery feeling like garbage, she was there saying "Oh, you look so good!"
I think the world of Messrs Jones and Schmidt, and I am both privileged and extremely lucky that a purchase of four tickets on a whim to see a show in August 1964 led to such wonderful friends.
