46 years ago, when I was seventeen, I saw in the first weekend of September the final summer production at the old shelterhouse which was the original Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. A week later I was a college freshman. The show was the four-year-old musical THE FANTASTICKS and I don't think I've ever seen a production of THE FANTASTICKS that moved me as much as that first one because it was so fresh and unique. I had never seen anything like it: it was small and intimate, the cast never left the stage, Luisa at one point sat with the pianist, the cast spoke to, and became involved with, the audience, and the sound of the harp and piano was the most interesting instrumental combination I had ever heard. The show is now fifty years old, and I am seventeen again. The current cast is quite wonderful, and Tom Jones' portrayal of Henry Albertson, which he created, is amazing. The man's 80 if he's a day, and his performance deserves to be seen by everyone. He gets the laughs, and there are some huge ones, and never loses the poignancy of someone out of step with time and refusing to give up. The whole cast is good, but Tom is amazing.
It was a wonderful evening at the theatre; I got to talk to two former Luisas, Rita Gardner and Susan Watson, Richard Roland, Robert Viagas, Peter Filichia, Douglas Colby, Bruce Pomahac, and a lot of others. I'm only sorry that Harvey is not feeling well enough to travel, so he wasn't there physically, but he was certainly present in every bar of that glorious score.