Six performers in a line at the footlights, a brick wall and a tall arched window glowing amber behind them. The first production photos of The Fantasticks show the world Second Stage Theater has built at the Hayes Theater for the musical's Broadway premiere, which opens on November 16.
The pictures are by Joan Marcus, and they arrive as previews, which began on October 22, head into the final stretch before opening. Most of the company gets a frame of their own. Zane Phillips, the narrator El Gallo, crouches at the lip of the stage in black lace and a red neckerchief, footlights in cages at his boots. Ruthie Ann Miles and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, who play the two mothers, clown together in floral prints and denim against a wash of deep blue. Kevin Del Aguila and David Patrick Kelly turn up as the traveling players Mortimer and Henry, one in a ruff mid-lunge, the other gaping at him in a battered gold vest. And Ahmad Simmons, The Mute, kicks into a split leap in head-to-toe white in front of a painted banner carrying the show's title.
The young lovers, Matt and Lewis, are played by Maxim Chlumecky and Nathan Levy. That pairing is the headline change in this version. Tom Jones has revised his own book and lyrics so that the couple are two young men and the parents who scheme to bring them together are two mothers, Mildred Hucklebee and Bessie Mae Bellomy. Harvey Schmidt's score, Try to Remember and all, is untouched.
Christopher Gattelli directs and choreographs. The photos give a good look at Jason Sherwood's set, a bare brick shell with barn doors, rope rigging and a crate stenciled with the theater's own name, and at Linda Cho's costumes and Jen Schriever's lighting, which swings the same wall from warm amber to cold blue. Earlier this fall the company sang part of the score at a press performance, and that footage is in our earlier post.
The Fantasticks plays the Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, through February 7, 2027. Second Stage produces in association with Broadway & Beyond Theatricals, Daryl Roth and True North Theatricals.
Tickets for The Fantasticks on Broadway are on sale now.
