Two microphones, a wall of warm amber light and the songs everybody knows. Second Stage Theater has put out footage from its press performance of The Fantasticks, the first look at the musical's Broadway premiere, which starts performances at the Hayes Theater on October 22.
The clip runs just under three minutes and comes from the company's own YouTube channel. Zane Phillips, Maxim Chlumecky, Nathan Levy, Ruthie Ann Miles and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer take the score for a spin in front of the press, ahead of the first paying audience.
If the player does not load, the video is on YouTube.
This is not the version that ran for 42 years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. Tom Jones has revised his own book and lyrics, and the young lovers are now two men, Matt and Lewis, rather than Matt and Luisa. The two fathers who scheme to bring their children together are now two mothers. The Harvey Schmidt score stays, Try to Remember included. Christopher Gattelli, a Tony winner for Newsies, directs and choreographs.
Chlumecky plays Matt and Levy plays Lewis. Kritzer is Matt's mother, Mildred Hucklebee, and Miles is Lewis's mother, Bessie Mae Bellomy. Phillips is El Gallo, the Narrator. Kevin del Aguila plays Mortimer, the Man Who Dies, David Patrick Kelly is Henry, the Old Actor, and Ahmad Simmons is The Mute.
Behind them: sets by Jason Sherwood, costumes by Linda Cho, lighting by Jen Schriever and sound by Nevin Steinberg. Sam Davis handles music supervision and new orchestrations, and Rick Hip-Flores is music director. Second Stage produces in association with Broadway & Beyond Theatricals, Daryl Roth and True North Theatricals.
The Fantasticks runs at the Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street. Previews begin October 22 ahead of an opening night on November 16, and tickets are on sale now.
