THE FANTASTICKS was  Fantastic!  Now that Broadway shows are opening back up it remind me of he only roadway show we have seen, KONG.  Which was another version of king kong with live rocking music.

It also reminded me of the off-Broadway play, THE FANTASTICKS.  This was about 1964 or 1965 when I was stationed nearby in Lakehurst, NJ.  My friend Sam has seen it before, maybe more than once.  The play of held in the basement of a building I in the Village.  The room wasn’t all that big, maybe the size of a regular classroom.   It was “standing room only”  and we can vouch for that statement. 

The play was simple enough.  It was about two families living next door.  One family had a son courting age and of course the other son had a daughter courting age.  The story was mostly about the two fathers interacting about their children dating and falling in love, naturally.  That I simple enough.  Then there is whole flow strange characters, that make the story more interesting.

But the jest of the story is that there is no props.  The props are in care of the prop man.  If they need a fence to talk over the prop man runs over between them an holds out a walking cane or an umbrella..  If fall leaves are called for he gracefully dances around with a sack of colored leaves to throw.

A number of popular songs came from this play.  Just typing it I am min-humming “Soon it is going to rain, I can feel it.”

Which if rain is called for the prop man with take care of that with a water bobble and fan.  For wind he huffs and puffs.

We have seen the play two or three times, at Kennesaw College I think.  It is always different, people adding their special interpretation and so on.

According to Wikipedia th story is Harry Schmidt and the music by Tom Jones (Tom Jones?)