The Fantasticks

When I saw the show at the Sullivan Street Playhouse back in the seventies the theatre's 150 seats were at least half empty on a Saturday night no less. In fact it made me wonder the same thing then that you're questioning now. Yet it ran until 2002 and according to a 2006 NY Times article the reason it did finally close was due to dwindling audiences and the entrance of a new landlord with renovation plans that proved unreasonable to the producers. So I imagine it's overall a rather cheap show to run what with a handful of actors, minimal scenery and only a piano and harp (with the harpist sometimes doubling on percussion instruments). If I'm not mistaken the original 1960 cast album augmented the score with a second piano just for the recording. Curious to know if they're using one or two pianos in the current production?

Side note: I've seen the show many times over the years but nothing has topped the first time I saw it in a 1964 touring production starring a teenage Liza Minnelli as Luisa and a then rather dashing 26 year old Elliott Gould as El Gallo. I only wish they had recorded that cast too. Minnelli had a surprisingly wide range back then though the score was apparently rearranged in part for her voice (as was the score to the CARNIVAL stock production I saw her in that same year).

"Yet it ran until 2002 and according to a 2006 NY Times article the reason it did finally close was due to dwindling audiences and the entrance of a new landlord with renovation plans that proved unreasonable to the producers."

The only reason the Sullivan Street Playhouse production closed was due to a new landlord wanting the space. Over the years, the show had rises and falls in audience members, but they had created a legacy. Original audience members later brought their children and then their grandchildren. Was it full to capacity every night? No. Did they still have an audience coming to see it? Yes.

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I can't speak for the current production, but when we did the show in high school (many moons ago), the score was arranged for two pianos. And that's how we performed it.

If they are down to one piano, I suspect that was a cost-cutting measure employed at some point in the long run.

It's not that I don't believe you, Jon. But I know the score we received from the licensing org. required two pianos.

May we hear how you know what was done at Sullivan St. for 40 years?

(ETA it occurs to me that in high school we may have substituted a second piano because we didn't have a harpist. I saw two pianists playing from the published score and perhaps I made a false assumption. I'll ask the director of that production the next time I see him.)

Updated On: 6/28/14 at 09:19 PM

Thanks, peerrjb, that makes sense. (I am amused to report I was at the house of our production's musical director just two hours ago and saw his old copy of THE FANTASTICKS' printed score on the shelf. If only I'd known I needed to open the cover page! BTW, our production was done 43 years ago.)