Harvey Schmidt - The Fantasticks

A THEATRICAL WONDER
Life Magazine

DISTINGUISHED AND DELIGHTFUL
Saturday Review

IT IS STILL MAGICAL
The Denver Post

AS DELIGHTFUL AS NEVER
Variety

FANTASTIC! INCREDIBLE! STAGGERINO
Town and Country

A MUSICAL PHENOMENON
The Washington Post

The Fantasticks

THE MUSICAL

A LOOK AT THE AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATER

by Richard Kislan

New, Revised, Expanded Edition

Richard Kislan examines the history, the creators, and the vital components that make up a musical and demonstrates as never before how musicals are made.

From its beginnings in colonial America, the musical theater has matured into an impressive art and business, one that has brought millions the experience that director-choreographer Bob Fosse describes as when everybody has a good time even in the crying scenes.

Kislan traces the musicals evolution through the colorful eras of minstrels, vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and comic opera up to the present day. Youll learn about the lives, techniques, and contributions of such great 20th- century composers and lyricists as Jerome Kern, Rodgers an d Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and others. Kislan explains all the basic principles, materials and techniques that go into the major elements of a musical production the book, lyrics, score, dance and set design.

Richard Kislans acclaimed study of Americas musical theatre has been updated to bring it up to the cutting edge of todays musicals. A new section entitled: Recent Musical Theater: Issues and Problems includes chapters on The British Invasion Competition from the Electronic Media Escalating Costs The Power of the Critics The Depletion of Creative Forces Multiculturalism The Decline of the Broadway Neighborhood* Stephen Sondheim and his influence on the present day musical theater.

Paper ISBN 1-55783-217-X

Tony Awards & Drama Critics Circle
Award for Best Musical

APPLAUSE MUSICAL LIBRARY

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler

Based on a version of Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond
Introduction by Beverly Sills

Here, with all its richness and power, is the monumental musical that revolves around the Fleet Street barber whose razors swing takes many an unsuspecting victim and the woman who bakes them into pies. This thriller is as haunting to read as it is to watch on the stage.

A work of such scope and vision and daring that it dwarfs every other Broadway musical that even attempts to invite comparison.

Rex Reed, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sweeney Todd is not just next months cocktail party conversation it will be talked about for years. This is sensationally entertaining theatre. Simply great.

Clive Barnes, NEW YORK POST

Sweeney Todd stands head and shoulders above everything else in todays musical theatre.

Martin Gottfried, CUE

The Musical Library Edition of Sweeney Todd Includes:

• Eugene Lees set designs
• Franne Lees costume designs
• Production photographs, cast lists and credits, and awards for all major productions, including the original Broadway production, the London production, the New York Opera production, and the current Broadway revival
• The complete discography

paper ISBN: 1-55783-066-5

Pulitzer Prize &
New York Drama Critics Circle Award

APPLAUSE MUSICAL LIBRARY

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Introduction by James Lapine

The young Georges Seurat was born in 1859 in Paris and died there in 1891. Dimanche, LAprs-Midi lIle de la Grande Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte) was his second major work and Sunday in the Park with George is a work of fiction inspired by this masterpiece of Seurat and what little is known of his life.

Seurat, applying his grand artistic visions to canvas, neglects and abandons his mistress, Dot, who in turn runs off to America with a pastry chef. One hundred years later, Seurats great-grandson, himself a struggling artist, returns to the island of La Grande Jatte, where Dot appears to him and helps him break through his creative block.

Sunday is a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of the serious Broadway musical!

Frank Rich, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

The Musical Library Edition of Sunday in the Park with George includes:

• Tony Straiges set designs
• Patricia Zipprodts and Ann Hould-Wards costume designs
• Production photographs; cast lists and credits; and awards for all major productions, including the original Playwrights Horizons workshop production
• Lyrics deleted prior to the Broadway opening
• The complete discography

paper ISBN: 1-55783-068-1

Tony & New York Drama Critics Circle
Awards for Best Musical!

APPLAUSE MUSICAL LIBRARY

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Introduction by Jonathan Tunick

A Little Night Music, suggested by Ingmar Bergmans film Smiles of a Summer Night, celebrates the ways of love on a turn-of-the-century Swedish estate and the Midsummer Eve follies of tangled liaisons and romantic intrigues.

Heady, civilized, sophisticated and enchanting. Good God! An adult musical.

Clive Barnes, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Throwing caution to the winds, I assert that A Little Night Music comes as close as possible to being the perfect romantic musical comedy.

Brendon Gill, THE NEW YORKER

Like dry wine from a good year.

Allan Wallach, NEWSDAY

Here is real magic that bursts forth to engulf the audience.

Rex Reed, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The Musical Library Edition of A Little Night Music includes:

• Boris Aronsons set designs
• Florence Klotzs costume designs
• Production photographs; cast lists and credits; and awards for all major productions, including the original Broadway production, the London production and the motion picture
• Lyrics deleted prior to the Broadway opening
• The complete discography

paper ISBN: 1-55783-070-3

Trying to Remember

One Mans Recollections of the Origins of THE FANTASTICKS

By Tom Jones

Scenes from the Comdie Franaise production of Les Romanesques.

I tell the future. Nothing easier. So says the Fortune Teller in The Skin of Our Teeth. But, she adds profoundly, who can tell the past?

Of that small handful of people who were involved in the original production of The Fantasticks, no two will remember it quite the same. Even Harvey and I, who were there at the very beginning, and who have, in tandem, answered the same questions about its history for fully thirty years even we differ, on particulars if not on primary events.