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[0:06] Andrew Child: Hi, I'm Andrew Child and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication 50 Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:24] Andrew Child: Today's episode focuses on chapter 16, The Fantasticks.

[0:29] Andrew Child: And with us today is author of that chapter, David Arthur.

[0:34] Andrew Child: As a long-standing member of the Lehman Engel BMI Workshop, he is the recipient of the Jerry Harrington Award.

[0:42] Andrew Child: In addition to writing the book and lyrics for the New York Musical Theater Festival Award-winning ABOUT FACE, with music by Jeffrey Lodin, David, along with Brian Lasser, contributed material to the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs award-winning review, Here's to Our Friends.

[0:59] Andrew Child: For the concert stage, he has written for Randy Graff, Judy Kuhn, Karen Mason, Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy, and Barbara Walsh, along with the music, lyrics, and book for SARATOGA TRUNK SONGS.

[1:14] Andrew Child: Current projects include the book and lyrics for NOBODY SLEEPS WELL in Casablanca with music by Douglas J. Cohen, and the book and lyrics for ODDLY ENOUGH, with music by Mary Feinsinger. David, thank you so much for being here today.

[1:30] David Arthur: I'm delighted to be here.

[1:32] David Arthur: Thank you, Andrew.

[1:33] Andrew Child: So I've read your chapter on The Fantasticks, but for those listeners who maybe haven't gotten their hands on the book yet, could you maybe summarize, give us the elevator pitch, what makes The Fantasticks a key musical? Why do we care?

[1:47] David Arthur: Um, you know what it is? It's timeless. And so many shows, they're written at a different in a certain decade, and they own that decade. They can't really live. But The Fantasticks is timeless. You can do The Fantasticks 30 years from now, and it will still be effective for several elements. I mean, I think Tom and Harvey wrote an eccentric score. There are beautiful ballads in the score, but Harvey was completely unique. And when he studied music, he went to wonderful music school, and all his teachers said, no, no, no, you can't do those chords, those chords don't make any sense. And Harvey stuck to it. And if you listen to the score, there are so many things that are so Harvey Schmidt. And you can hear it in subsequent shows of his in Celebration and 110 in the Shade.

And even though I do, I do is a pretty standard musical, musically, there are still many, many times you think, oh, no one else could have written that but Harvey, and also the fact that it had a timeless story that still speaks to very young people and very old people, and it's the oldest story ever. It's just that we live within four seasons, and within those four seasons, things happen to us, and we grow, and we die in the winter, and we come back in the spring, and we're off to the races again, and we've learned something. And I think that's the greatest message to people who see it. It's not dated, they very wisely didn't put it in any specific period. If you look at the show now, let's say it's already 60 years old.

You can look at it and think, well, was this written last year? Because even the way that they treat the costuming, the whole show has a timeless element. You can't figure out what decade it's really in, and that helps the show as well.

[4:21] David Arthur: So yeah, it totally seems like these very strange, almost discordant sounds that keeps it very timeless. Would you say that from a lyrical standpoint? Are there also moments in this show that you feel like you could pinpoint as making this seem more contemporary, making this seem sort of ahead of its time?

[4:47] David Arthur: Um, I think Tom went out of his way to make sure that it has poetry. The lyrics are all poetic, and they don't, in other words, within the lyrics, they're not talking about New York City or something. We're obviously in a rural section of the country, and none of the lyrics are wedded to anything that's current. They're all timeless. The same way, say, for instance, in the movie of The Wizard of Oz, there was a song written, a dance number, called The Jitterbug. And this is 1939. And Harold Arlen's score, again, was very eccentric and beautiful in that movie, also containing one of the most beautiful ballads ever written. But when they were doing the final cuts on the movie, they decided to throw out The Jitterbug because it was a jitterbug in a very 1940s kind of number. And they were afraid it would age the show. That you would not be able to think of it as being timeless. So it was a very wise decision.

[6:06] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely. Do you think in a similar way? Do you think when they're in the room, they're with the piano, they're working on The Fantasticks? Is that same sort of cutting process happening? Are they actively trying to create something that can be timeless? Or do you think that's something that just they stumbled upon?

[6:25] David Arthur: I think they were very aware of it. These are two excellent writers. Harvey's no longer with us, but Tom is still active. He's 95 years old, I think now. And he is still working. He's writing the music for a musical adaptation of Harold and Maud.

[6:47] Andrew Child: Oh, cool. I love that movie.

[6:48] David Arthur: Very cool. And also Tom is unafraid of rewriting, completely throwing out a song. His collaborator, the composer, the excellent Joseph Talkin, keeps writing. I mean, he keeps handing him lyrics, and Joe keeps writing new songs for the show. But the same thing was true when they did 110 in the Shade. I think they must have for a show that probably contains 18 songs, they probably ultimately wrote 80 songs. Wow. So there's always, it's like in a, you know, in a poem or in a lyric, I write lyrics, and there's only one right word, and you search for it, and because there's great economy with writing lyrics, so every word counts, every word has got to mean something. And Tom, being an excellent lyricist, and Tom also did the book, I think Ward Baker also worked on the book for The Fantasticks. It was, and it's very, there's a lot of humor in it and a lot of broad humor.

[8:04] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely.

[8:05] David Arthur: Yeah, and but it all somehow works in a very kind of avant-garde commedia dell'arte way that never seems like they're jumping off a cliff. It all seems again very 1960s avant-garde, because that's the way those shows were written and they were embraced, but shows are still being written like that. And I, for one, love to go see a show that the authors take a chance, they jump in with both feet. Because if it's too predictable or you're sort of ahead of it, then it becomes a little bit of a chore to get through it. There are many shows now. Flying Over Sunset was one that recently opened that I saw, and again, I admired it for taking tremendous chances. And then every turn jumping off and jumping on, jumping in with two feet.

So yeah, there's another one, a smaller opera playing at the Mitzi Newhouse that does exactly the same thing that Jason Robert Brown wrote. Again, very courageous, and I think you have to. I think you have to, instead of writing what's popular today, this very second, you have to somehow magically look in the future and figure out a way to make it different and a different wake of musical. And I think that's what Tom and Harvey did with The Fantasticks.

[9:45] David Arthur: Well, I think there are so many just, you mentioned these discordant chord progressions early on that he was writing. And there are so many that spring to mind in The Fantasticks that seem so distinctive, so beautiful. My favorite is in Soon It's Gonna Rain, the Where We Can Stay is maybe one of my favorite just sounds in all of musical theater. So it really is amazing that they could put notes together in such a unique way that we still don't really hear replicated, and that is sort of out of nowhere in time.

[10:27] David Arthur: Well, I agree. And also just look, even at the verse of Soon It's Gonna Rain, is so brilliantly written and musically and harmonically eccentric. You hear things like even how it starts out so beautiful, see how the wind begins to whistle, see how the stream and that is gorgeous. And then Harvey sticks in, oh goodness, where did that come from? And yet it makes perfect sense. There's always something dissonant, which is foreshadowing of the rain. In other words, soon it's gonna rain, but not right now, you know. So, and if it does, we'll be okay. But there's a lot of dissonance in that beautiful score, it would be a beautiful tune.

[11:18] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely. And what's what happens it calls to mind another one that I really love that you sort of talked about 110 in the Shade. I love when he keeps coming back to that name, Melison in the song.

[11:30] David Arthur: Yeah, I love the way that builds, it's that same sort of what are these notes? We've never put these together.

[11:39] Andrew Child: You know, yeah.

[11:41] David Arthur: And that is he didn't write Melison.

[11:47] Andrew Child: Exactly.

[11:47] David Arthur: Yeah.

[11:48] David Arthur: Oh my gosh. And I love 110 in the Shade. Are you a fan of that show as well?

[11:53] David Arthur: Well, you know, I'm very familiar with it because I saw as a kid, I was in school, and it was a bus and truck that came into Chicago.

[12:03] Andrew Child: Okay.

[12:03] David Arthur: And played the Schubert Theater, which was a big roadhouse in Chicago. But it was obviously a bus and truck, and it was only coming in for I think two weeks or something.

[12:15] David Arthur: I think maybe a booking got cancelled or something, and the look of it kind of looked like a bus and truck. They it was all backdrops, and some of them were ripped on the side and stuff. But it was um Jeannie Crane and Biff McGuire. And I just fell in love with it. With that show score. Yes, because uh my principal of my high school called and offered anyone who wants to see 110 in the Shade. I went to an all-boys' high school, by the way. Okay. But anyone who wants to go to see 110 in the Shade, we have little vouchers that you can present at the box office and you can see it for two dollars. Wow. Uh we got on the 63rd Street bus and went downtown and we sat in the second balcony of the Schubert Theater.

I think then it was still called the Second Balcony. Now it's the rear mezzanine. And I was because the show opens really quietly. You hear bada da weird chord there from Harvey. And I was I was already with them. Okay. And yeah, it was just great. And then it opened slowly. There's a number called Gonna Be It's Gonna Be Another Hot Day. And not the not the way a typical way a musical would open. No. You could you could see how hot they were and what they were doing. And also later, because I love the musical so much, and I bought the of course bought the album, and then so I went to go see the source material on a movie that Katherine Hepburn and Bert Lancaster did called The Rainmaker. And I was surprised and delighted that many, many of Harvey's lyric uh Harvey's no Tom's lyrics were taken straight from the text.

Oh wow. So so Lizzie's old maid was almost word for word what uh N. Richard Nash wrote in the original. That's really I One Ten in the Shade is also very significant for me, slightly less romantic, but um one of my earliest memories of seeing anything theater related and being like, whoa, we can do this, um, was uh staying up late. Uh and my mother let us stay up late to watch the first part of the Tony Awards, and it was the year that the roundabout had done One Ten. So Audrey McDonald performed Ranchi, and she's up on a table and she's doing cartwheels. And I don't think that we stayed up late enough to watch any of the big like ensemble showstopping numbers, but the that just that was crazy.

So of course I also had to get my hands on like what is One Ten in the Shade? Give me more, I need more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here I am. Well, the original production had uh uh Robert Horton and Inga Swenson, and that recording is just so brilliant. And he's he's he had never done a musical before, but it's a fine baritone voice, and she was out of this world. Um the end of the first act is old maid, and which is the oh my god, it's a searing number. Um and then I remember even as a kid, I was blown away that the the um set or the lighting plot, as it went on, it got redder and redder and redder and redder. So at the very end, when she's kind of like flipping out, the whole stage is red, the backdrop is red.

Oh wow. And you can see how she's just flipping out, realizing that she's never gonna get married, that she'll she'll never be happy, she'll never have children, she'll wind up taking care of her father and her brothers until they all die or get married. So it's a it's an incredible first act closing. So if you haven't ever uh listened to the original uh Robert Horton and Inga Swenson recording of One Ten in the Shade, treat yourself.

[16:29] Andrew Child: Oh I absolutely I second that. Anyone who hasn't listened, I absolutely love that album. I love this score. I'd love to know do you think um should young lyricists, young composers who want to be working in musical theater, should they be paying special attention to shows like The Fantasticks, shows like One Ten in the Shade?

[16:54] David Arthur: Well, I think they should. I think they should listen to them, I think they should study them and then forget them, and then write what they want to write. But they it'll teach them the basics, and also there's nothing wrong with studying something that works. You know, there are a lot, there are plenty of crappy musicals that I would say, well, don't listen to those, you're not gonna learn anything. But learn from the prose. You know, go back, listen to Rogers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, and Ira Gershwin. Listen to them, don't ape them. But and but realize that those these men and women who wrote these shows were on they were on top of their game. And I still listen to things like from what they wrote.

And sometimes I'll even after I've heard something, uh, especially things from my young when I was younger, that kind of just went over my head, you know, and I've been just used to hearing them. Oh, of course. Yeah, and now I hear them. I thought, oh my god, that's what that means. Oh, yes. So you can always learn something from these great writers. And again, in to answer your question, yes, I would say these things should be studied. Uh Lehman Engel, who started the BMI workshop, um, was insistent that the young writers um be versed in the classics. And then later on, uh there were other people who took over the workshop, uh, like Mori Yesen and uh Richard Inquist, and and it was the same thing.

I mean, they they would make uh a point of bringing material into the workshop and having the class here and see how they did it, how they they waited until the end of the they they didn't give it away in the first part of the lyric of the line. So a lot of times writers will run to that rhyme at the end. Well, it's actually everything that winds up before the rhyme is the real need of it and what we should be paying attention to, and not the rhyme.

[19:08] Andrew Child: Do you think do you go with that mentality when you start approaching writing the lyrics for?

[19:16] David Arthur: I do. I do. I do. I follow what a lot of the really wonderful uh lyricists have already written, and I've I've learned from them, and I try to apply it in my own lyrics, and that always is always every song is a three-act play. You have to look at it as a three-act play. You don't start, we don't start at the very beginning. And at the end of the lyric, you either that singer or the lyric has had a change in it, or sometimes it's as simple as, like in a Sondheim lyric. Sometimes you'll consider a lot of things in the lyric and then realize at the end, you know what? I don't even know if that's the, you know, I don't know. I'm still oblivious as to what I should do. But they but the actor and the writer of the lyric has gone through the journey. Does that make sense?

[20:27] Andrew Child: Absolutely. Do you think are there songs in the whole musical theater canon that come to mind for you when you talk about a song being a three-act play that you think?

[20:38] David Arthur: Oh man. Well, you know, the classic one is um uh Billy's soliloquy in Carousel.

[20:44] Andrew Child: Oh, of course.

[20:45] David Arthur: Okay. Okay, so he goes through many changes in that soliloquy. I mean, at first you'll think he's kind of pompous, you know. He'll, you know, he'll call me the old man. He'll be like so, and then later on, you know, he realizes oh my god, what if he is a she? What if it's a girl? And then he changes everything, everything, the whole world changes, and then he has that beautiful snippet of uh my little guru, pink and white, his speeches. Oh, oh my god. And then the final summation is that he makes that that the willful decision. She's gonna be comforted and uh fed and dressed in the best that money knew can buy. I never knew how to make money, but I'll try, god damn it, I'll try, you know, and he'll do that, or die. That's how he ends that soliloquy. And that is a huge journey. Now, not all songs have to make that dramatic of a journey. I mean, I was gonna say that also that's like a 10-minute song in and of itself, you know.

[21:52] Andrew Child: That's yes, it is from theft.

[21:55] David Arthur: Wow. Yeah. Well, Sondheim's a was a genius, and even shorter numbers, like uh little Red's number in Into the Woods. Okay, called I Know Things Now, you know, that I never have known, you know, that and then you you get how she was afraid and scared, and then at the very end, it's like, isn't it nice to know a lot? And a little bit not so it's good to know a lot, but Sondheim being such a genius, said, Yeah, it's you know, he said, It's good to know all of that, but also not so fast. There's yeah, so he was always there was a lot to think about in his lyrics and still will be forever.

[22:40] Andrew Child: Do you think you approach when you are writing music for cabarets for the concert stage? Do you come in with the same mentality as when you're writing pieces for a musical theater piece?

[22:48] David Arthur: I do. I do. I just think they're more interesting.

[22:57] Andrew Child: Oh, really?

[22:58] David Arthur: Um, yeah I just think so. I think that it engages an audience. Um because sometimes if the if the lyric just doesn't travel it's what I would call traveling. Uh they'll they'll zone out. You know they just get complacent to the listening to what might be a very beautiful melody but they're not engaged uh with the text and because I I did write a lot of cabaret songs for people and uh they were all the singers are all brilliant in the I was gonna say for for people you've wrote written a lot for some huge people some very names.

[23:38] Andrew Child: Yeah so a lot of times uh I was I was asked to write something for a concert and they said we would like you to write for uh say Randy Graff.

[23:50] David Arthur: So I would call Randy and and I didn't I got to know her very well and she did the lead in one of my musicals and was fantastic. But at the time I didn't know her that well and I said well what do you like to sing? I mean what kind of you know what kind of number would you like to do for this evening because they're the one that's gonna be up there doing it. Right. So she's brilliant at comedy so I wrote her a comedy number and she was she's very very smart about comedy and uh what I what I learned from Randy is that uh the tempo is in a comedy number is everything.

[24:34] David Arthur: So if you go too fast on the tempo, they won't get the jokes. You'll speed through the text and they won't get the jokes. If you go too slow, then they're ahead of you. You know, if that makes any sense.

[24:49] Andrew Child: No, absolutely.

[24:50] David Arthur: And again, this was this was a real story song. The name of the song is um a good book. And it's about a woman telling us how the her early part of her life was spent dating the wrong men.

[25:07] Andrew Child: Okay.

[25:08] David Arthur: Okay. So a lot of times she would go out, and if she was not having a good, very good time. So in order for her to have a good time, along with going to the movie, she would bring a good book. Okay. So if she did yeah, so in case of things weren't going well, she would open up a book and start reading.

[25:23] Andrew Child: Oh nice.

[25:24] David Arthur: Uh, which is again for a comedy number, what you try to do is not um, well, any kind of song, you don't hit it on the notes. It's what I call taking the side door. You find another way to say it differently. That's a surprise for the audience.

[25:44] David Arthur: So let's come back, I guess, a little bit back to the Fantasticks. Do you think that it's one of those shows that we sort of have the shows before the Fantasticks, but then once the Fantasticks is on the scene, do we see um sort of an artistic influence from this show in the following musical theater works that come after it?

[26:12] David Arthur: Yeah, I think so, definitely, particularly off Broadway. Uh, because Broadway was still used to doing huge musicals with big casts. And uh there was a musical called The Golden Apple that was done off Broadway originally, scaled down, but it was it it was a it was in essence a big musical and it was very beautifully written in the same way. Uh it was very eccentric musically, and at that time everyone was encouraged to write stuff that was different, and even the even the off Broadway shows that opened after the Fantasticks and to this day have a tendency to be quirky.

[26:59] Andrew Child: So you would you would on occasion get something like your good man Charlie Brown, but that's an anomaly.

[27:05] David Arthur: Okay. But off Broadway, you were encouraged to be if there's the phrase that that carpenters use, uh, which is a couple bubbles off plum. Do you know what that means?

[27:17] Andrew Child: I do not know what that means.

[27:18] David Arthur: Okay, this is good. My father taught me this. He was a brilliant carpenter. And it's a it's a a level that you put against the wall, and there's a little thing in the middle of it. So if it's not, if it's a little bit off, the bubble will be off the center. Uh-huh. But the but the bubble has to be absolutely in the center of these two lines. And if it's a couple bubbles off plum, it's eccentric. It's a little off.

[27:44] Andrew Child: Okay.

[27:45] David Arthur: So off Broadway things were encouraged to be a couple bubbles off plum.

[27:50] Andrew Child: Got it.

[27:51] David Arthur: Okay. Do you think are are there other off-Broadway musicals that you would say are a couple bubbles off plum that you think musical theater writers, lyricists, composers should be paying attention to today?

[28:06] David Arthur: Well, there were a lot of them. A lot of them weren't very successful, like uh the adding uh machine was very eccentric. But I admired it again because it jumped in with both feet. Um there are little shop of horrors. We all think we all kind of think, oh, yeah, with that's oh, when that first opened, that was really that score that driving uh uh the Howard Ashman lyrics, and oh it was just it was it was written like a real musical, but none of it was like a real musical. It's silly, it's just a couple bubbles off plum, but it's yeah, it's wild.

[28:52] Andrew Child: Well, it's when the plant started singing and eating people. We we knew that we there was something odd going on.

[28:58] David Arthur: Yeah. And do you think can we trace back the ability for Little Shop of Horrors to become the huge success it is today? Does it owe anything to the Fantasticks? You think?

[29:11] David Arthur: I think everything owes something to the Fantasticks. I think that uh it opened, it put on all the green lights for anyone who wanted to write something and had something in their hearts that was unusual. And uh again, Tom's lyrics are so beautiful and so poetic and exciting and funny, and Harvey's work, song for song is exceptional. When they finally get to round and round in the second act, which is so macabre, yeah, it's almost theater of the you know, bizarre macabre, and uh just all of those, again, the weird chord progressions, and uh also the fact that the the show opens with an eccentric little overture that has nothing to do with anything else in the show. You never hear that tune again.

[30:09] Andrew Child: You know, and it's it's that was unusual.

[30:14] David Arthur: So I think that uh maybe it could be that Harvey liked the fact that the overture to Candeed was uh a tune that really wasn't uh used anywhere else in the show, and in that overture we you get we get oh happy pear, oh happy we, but the rest of it is an eccentric original Leonard Bernstein piece that's often played in concert halls.

[30:39] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely, and it's a fabulous piece, and oh it is it absolutely it riles you up to watch a musical comedy. I've been at multiple concerts and seen it played, and I think it's a letdown to follow that up with with the show, no, with with some other song. I want to see I want to see Candide now, you know. Keep going, bring him out, bring them out.

[31:04] David Arthur: Well, it's wonderful, it's it's a wonderful overture, and I I hear it all the time on WQXR here in New York, and uh it's it's always like you're hearing it for the first time. There's so many colors in it, and you can see uh Leonard Bernstein's brilliance, and also the the great talent he had for beautiful melodic song like uh the verse to Oh Happy Pearl, oh happy We La Da It're just lush and beautiful. So I mean, I I just I turn into a puddle when I when I hear a great overture like that.

[31:49] David Arthur: Uh like um That's another score, that's another show. I mean, you are aptly calling it also eccentric, but then the lyrics to the part that you were just singing are also so lush, like you said. Uh they're so tied in with nature, they're so disjointed from any particular place from any time, they're just plain beautiful.

[32:15] Andrew Child: Yeah, you know why? Because with every score, if you only had eccentric, if you only had things that were um jagged, uh you would start getting annoyed listening to it. So that's why even in the songs in uh The Fantastics, when the couple at the end sing they were you, the tune is so simple, and the lyric is so simple. When the moon was young, when the month was May, when the stage was hung for our holiday, I saw shining lights, but I never knew they were you.

[32:52] David Arthur: Well, that's a very direct from the heart lyric, and the tune is as simple as well. Do you know did you know that that was Gower Champion's favorite song?

[33:03] Andrew Child: Oh, really?

[33:04] David Arthur: Yeah, of all the songs he'd ever heard, and he's heard a lot. Mm-hmm. He th he thought that that was the loveliest song he had ever heard for the stage.

[33:13] Andrew Child: It absolutely is an incredible song. I mean, it's so hard to talk about the Fantastics just because they're uh every song that we're gonna mention, I'm gonna say, Oh, that's my favorite song in this show. I love that song.

[33:26] David Arthur: Yeah, well, you know what it is because you get something from every uh drawer in the bureau. So you get something silly from the from the fathers, you get two vaudeville numbers from the fathers, which are very welcome. One in the first act, one in the second. And then, of course, you get the eccentric characters of the Indian and the old actor climbing out of a trunk, which is way, way crazy. And then sexy El Gaio comes out and sings, uh, it all depends on what you pay. And you see the end of the the world weariness and knowledge of El Gaio and the complete naivete of Matt and Louisa. And uh it you get and the tone of all the songs are different. So you get I Can See It, which is very uh uh rhythmic, jazzy, um song about going out and doing it, getting out.

I want to go out and experience all this. And Louisa has a s uh has a similar moment when she's uh uh El Gaio is after her necklace, and uh makes the world that she's about to see, and then she does see it, and it's not so pretty.

[34:49] David Arthur: You know, she uh the what he sets before her, uh she's she's ready for a beautiful, lovely, lyrical waltzy time, and it all turns sour every one of the episodes of her going out into the world. Same thing for the boy. And that's the other thing that makes it so beautiful is that at the end, they both went out. It's a little bit like you know, uh, there's no place like home, but they they went out and they experienced something, and they realized at the end of that what they really wanted was each other. They saw it, they experienced it, it wasn't pretty. So I mean, I'm sure there are instances where people go out and it's very pretty and they're very satisfied. But uh for the fantastics, uh it's it's really a great story, and that's why again, I think that it's timeless, and it's something that anyone could see, and they'll realize something from it from their youth, or at some time as they were getting older, how they felt about looking at the world, how they're they're how their attitudes have changed, uh, and of course, the the narrator uh has seen it all.

[36:07] Andrew Child: Would you so say that you have a particular version of this show, whether it's an album or the movie, that if we have listeners who aren't familiar with the show, that would be a good introduction to the fantastics that would help it?

[36:27] David Arthur: You know, the um the the movie of the fantastics uh that they did was very earnest, but they uh and I'm not criticizing it because it was a tough piece to put on film.

[36:41] David Arthur: Oh, absolutely, uh, but it fails in every department.

[36:46] David Arthur: Okay, so I would not recommend that any young person wanting to study The Fantasticks looks at the film because that's really not the show.

[36:57] David Arthur: A lot of the tunes are, and I think even Tom and Harvey wrote something special for the movie.

[37:03] David Arthur: But um I would say listen to the original cast album.

[37:07] David Arthur: Uh there may be um and also you know, most local productions, uh the show's been done so much that it pretty much no one really messes around with it too much because there's you do what I mean.

[37:23] David Arthur: I think whatever you see, you're gonna that's gonna pretty much be and the other wonderful thing is that it's live.

[37:30] David Arthur: Seeing The Fantasticks live, but definitely a good start to it is to uh get a hold of that MGM original off-Broadway cast, uh, where you get Rita Gardner and Jerry Orbach and Kenneth Nelson and all these brilliant actors and singers, and also just the beauty of that heart in the piano, you know.

[37:55] David Arthur: I mean, it's it it's perfect, and you know they had a lot of choices when they were because they were on a very limited budget, and uh they chose the harp as opposed to a percussion uh right say a set of drums or something.

[38:12] David Arthur: Uh but uh that was a very wise choice.

[38:15] David Arthur: Oh, absolutely.

[38:18] Andrew Child: Have you seen it done several times?

[38:23] David Arthur: Many times, I'll be honest with you.

[38:25] David Arthur: I saw it the first time when I was 16 years old, and it was done in my high school.

[38:30] David Arthur: Well, not my high school, it was done at an all-girls' high school, and they um obviously they were gonna cast Luisa as a girl, but they also cast the fathers as mothers to get two more girls in the show.

[38:44] David Arthur: So uh and then the boy came from another high school, and I came from an all-boys high school, St. Lawrence High School, and uh it was wonderful.

[38:56] David Arthur: I think I was probably the worst El Gallo that has ever walked on the stage.

[39:01] David Arthur: Uh I was I was so hell-bent to be sexy, okay, and there was nothing sexy about a skinny 16-year-old trying to be sexy.

[39:11] Andrew Child: Well, it's hard because Jerry Orbach is so sexy, like you can listen to his voice and you just know it's exuding sensuality.

[39:20] David Arthur: So that is that's uh high bar if you were familiar with the recording at that point.

[39:24] David Arthur: No, no, no.

[39:25] David Arthur: And that was a tough that was a tough thing for a 16-year-old kid to do.

[39:30] David Arthur: And till this day, there's a short video of it, and I look at it and I'm so embarrassed about it.

[39:36] David Arthur: I've got this little black cape and the stupid black hat on, and oh, just trying to strut around and it was vomit provoking, I'm telling you.

[39:45] David Arthur: Oh god, and that's when you said, I'm gonna you know what I'm gonna write lyrics.

[39:48] David Arthur: I think I'm gonna do.

[39:49] David Arthur: But I I I w I worked as an actor for many, many years, but I never did The Fantasticks again, but I saw it many times.

[39:57] David Arthur: I actually saw Richard Chamberlain play El Gallo at a production in Chicago.

[40:02] David Arthur: He was very, very good.

[40:04] David Arthur: And there was a road company that went out, uh, that played in Chicago, again, very excellent.

[40:10] David Arthur: But you can find excellent productions of The Fantasticks being done.

[40:14] David Arthur: I have a friend who did it recently um in uh like Northbrook, Illinois, and he loved uh uh directing it.

[40:23] David Arthur: And he said many times when he would call me and say, You know what, this thing is so rich, uh it it plays so beautifully, and there's so much humor and heart and heartache in it, and uh it's done with a very small amount of people and a piano and a harp.

[40:45] Andrew Child: Well, and the other thing go ahead.

[40:47] David Arthur: Um I was gonna say that the at the end of the overture, Baker who directed it, um, knew that at the very end of the overture was wide pick up.

[40:58] David Arthur: And at that time, off-Broadway overtures were always very grounded.

[41:03] David Arthur: Oh, we're getting to the end of the and at the end, he goes the mute grabs in his bag and throws up like 150 uh um paper squares, like tissue paper squares in every conceivable color that you can imagine.

[41:24] David Arthur: So that last flurry before the overture ended was this hundred like a hundred and fifty of these things floating down to the stage.

[41:32] Andrew Child: Wow, yeah.

[41:34] David Arthur: So there we go.

[41:35] David Arthur: It's it's so simple, it doesn't take a million dollars, it doesn't take a huge technical knowledge, but it's magical, it's alive.

[41:43] Andrew Child: I was gonna say, uh, when you're talking about how few people it takes to pull it off, I think we're gonna see a golden age of the amateur groups and smaller theaters presenting The Fantasticks just because with the restrictions on gathering right now, it's uh pared down company.

[42:01] Andrew Child: My um my younger brother, I think when as we're recording this, I think next week is in an amateur production in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

[42:12] David Arthur: Oh.

[42:12] Andrew Child: But talking to him after he's playing Matt, and after the first rehearsal, uh, he was so taken aback by you know the two actors who are playing the fathers.

[42:24] Andrew Child: I think this is each of their third time doing the role, and there are other people in the show with him who, oh yeah, I did Matt, but now I'm doing the older actor, you know, all these different this legacy of this show that beyond being this artistic bar that we can reach to, it also just has such a huge life and is so significant to so many people who are working in theater, or so many people who love theater.

[42:54] David Arthur: And I think it hits on everything that you've touched upon that it's eccentric, it's a little strange, it's lush, it's beautiful.

[43:00] David Arthur: It was ahead of its time that it all just kind of comes together to make this beautiful little magical show.

[43:10] David Arthur: Well, Andrew, I'll be very honest.

[43:12] David Arthur: I've I've seen it maybe a dozen times uh over the years.

[43:17] David Arthur: I've listened to it a dozen times, I've heard some people sing songs from it, and every time I see it, I well up at the end.

[43:27] David Arthur: Um when they're put they're taking the uh the sweater that Matt is wearing, and it's the fall, you know, it's um it's called and he he wraps the sweater around himself and her, and she says, uh both, there's room for both.

[43:45] David Arthur: And I just and then they and they sing that beautiful song, and uh the other thing is that the you know the the significance of the last line of the show, and the fathers come out and they say, Oh, let's tear down the wall.

[44:02] David Arthur: And El Gallo says, No, leave the wall.

[44:05] David Arthur: You must always leave the wall.

[44:08] David Arthur: And for years I couldn't figure out that last line until eventually I talked to Tom about it, and he said, Oh, there's always has to be a barrier.

[44:19] David Arthur: That if you just all let all of the walls down, there's no conflict, and all lives need conflict.

[44:27] David Arthur: So there always needs to be something that you have to get through, and it makes you stronger, and it makes the relationship that you have with that other person stronger.

[44:39] David Arthur: So that's what that line means.

[44:41] David Arthur: There must you must always leave the wall.

[44:44] David Arthur: I know it sounds a little cold, but it isn't.

[44:47] David Arthur: It's ask any married couple that have been married for 50 years.

[44:51] David Arthur: You know, um, there is there are a lot of ups and downs, and there are um things that happen in that relationship that after they get through them, it makes that relationship stronger.

[45:05] David Arthur: I had a couple, I went to their 50th wedding anniversary recently, and they were talking in front of the entire group that was there for their wedding, and my friend Phyllis said, Someone recently asked me, what's it like being married 50 years?

[45:21] David Arthur: And she said, It's like being married 50 years.

[45:29] David Arthur: Which is very funny, but it's sort of goes into what I'm saying about you, you have this, you have that, this is good done, this happens that so it's always it's this little balance that you're always trying to make.

[45:41] David Arthur: And I think I think that's what that line at the end of The Fantasticks means.

[45:45] David Arthur: There always needs to be something that that will get in the way and then you find a way to get past it.

[45:54] David Arthur: And it goes back to what you were talking about earlier, speaking about lyrics, that sometimes there is something that you haven't experienced that you don't recognize, uh, that you come to and it doesn't really mean anything.

[46:08] David Arthur: It goes over your head.

[46:09] David Arthur: But that is one of those lines that later in life you can kind of come back to, or at different points in your life you can come back to, and it will have significance, it will mean something different, you'll understand it differently, which I think is makes it such a great ending to this strange little play.

[46:27] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[46:27] Andrew Child: Well, there's something there's wisdom in all of it.

[46:30] David Arthur: Uh even in the naivete of the two kids.

[46:33] David Arthur: I mean, they're s they're almost they're comical because they are so naive.

[46:38] David Arthur: And also anybody over a certain age, um, will be um aware that um I and they're almost it's almost comical because uh uh an audience member with a few years on them will realize, oh my god, I was just like that.

[46:56] David Arthur: Could I ever been that silly?

[46:58] David Arthur: Oh my was I and then the answer resoundingly is always yes.

[47:04] David Arthur: You were that silly.

[47:05] David Arthur: But you deserve to do that because your own at the beginning she says, I'm fifteen years old, and every day something wonderful happens to me.

[47:13] David Arthur: And she says, Please God, please don't let me be normal.

[47:18] David Arthur: So she wants something exciting and something uh more thrilling than what she's currently experiencing in her life.

[47:25] David Arthur: And the boy is is just ridiculous.

[47:28] David Arthur: I mean, he in the beginning.

[47:29] David Arthur: You know, he's he wants he's oh he's gonna fight battles and do all of these things and you think, oh come on, you know, and then but you realize that's what you do when you're younger because you're intrepid and you think everything is possible and you're gonna change everything.

[47:47] David Arthur: Um and they're sweet, and you don't dislike them for a moment because we see ourselves in them.

[47:55] David Arthur: We get it.

[47:58] Andrew Child: Well, thank you so very much for joining us today.

[48:01] David Arthur: Oh you know what you're terrific, and thanks.

[48:03] David Arthur: I hope I didn't talk too much.

[48:05] Andrew Child: No, absolutely not, and thank you to our listeners for being with us.

[48:08] Andrew Child: Please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description.

[48:17] Andrew Child: If you want to learn more about The Fantasticks, please also review the links in the below description.

[48:22] Andrew Child: I'm Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.

[48:29] ♪ Musical number: "Try to Remember" — performed by David Arthur ♪