Free Backstage Tours Now Included at Matinees of THE FANTASTICKS

Summer afternoons just got a whole lot cooler. The Fantasticks will offer free backstage tours following all weekend matinee performances now through Labor Day. Audience members will get to explore backstage, meet a cast member, take photos on the stage, and leave with a free Snapple.

"I especially enjoyed talking to the kids after a performance," said Edward Watts, who recently completed a fifteen-month run as El Gallo in The Fantasticks. "Many of them told me how much they liked the ‘magic' of the show and were curious as to what goes on behind the scenes and how we did all the exciting things they'd just just seen. And while they might have tried to hide it, the parents usually seemed pretty interested too!"

There is no additional charge for the tour, but a reservation is necessary. To make a reservation, call the box office at (212) 921-7862. The public is encouraged to bring cameras for the tour. Tours take place on weekend matinees only. Saturday performances are at 2pm and Sunday performances are at 3pm. The Fantasticks is approximately two hours long including a 15-minute intermission.

The Fantasticks plays at The Snapple Theater Center's Jerry Orbach Theater (210 West 50th Street at Broadway) on Mondays at 8PM, Tuesdays at 8PM, Wednesdays at 2PM, Fridays at 8PM, Saturdays at 2PM & 8PM and Sundays at 3PM & 7:30PM.

Tickets for The Fantasticks are available by calling the box office at (212) 921-7862 or by visiting Ticketmaster.com.

A modern twist on Romeo and Juliet, The Fantasticks is the charming and funny tale of boy and girl neighbors who fall in love against the wishes of their comical fathers, only to find out that the parents created a fake argument in order to get their children to disobey them! The score, which includes the hit songs "Try To Remember", "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "They Were You", is as timeless as the story itself. Having run for 42 years in its original production at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, The Fantasticks is the world's longest-running musical.

When The Fantasticks (music by Harvey Schmidt; book/lyrics/direction by Tom Jones) opened in 1960 at a tiny theater on New York City's Sullivan Street, no one ever dreamed it would run for 17,162 performances and become the world's longest-running musical. Since then there have been over 11,000 productions in more than 3,000 U.S. cities and towns and in 67 countries, from Afghanistan to Iran to Zimbabwe, making The Fantasticks the world's most frequently-produced musical. The show has been performed at The White House and has survived eleven U.S. Presidents beginning with President Eisenhower. Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Israel have all seen multiple productions. The Fantasticks has been translated into numerous languages including Pashto, Dari, Icelandic, Arabic, Hebrew, Magyar and Mandarin.

The Fantasticks has played all fifty states, plus Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. It has been performed for the Peace Corps in Africa, at the Shawnee Mission in Kansas, the Menninger Foundation, Olympian Fields, Yellowstone National Park and the White Sands Missile Range. It was performed in Mandarin by the Peking Opera, and in 1990 under the auspices of the United States State Department it played for the first time in Russia. There have been two film versions, one in 1964 and one in 2000, and the list of notable individuals who have appeared in the show through the years includes Jerry Orbach, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Harrison Ford, Liza Minnelli, F. Murray Abraham, Patti LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth, American Idol finalist Anthony Fedorov and Amazing Race winner Nick Spangler.

The Fantasticks company includes Bradley Dean (Carl-Magnus in Broadway's A Little Night Music), Bill Bateman (Broadway's Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, Hello, Dolly!), Matt Dengler (Broadway's A Little Night Music), MacIntyre Dixon (Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, A Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters, 1776, Prelude to a Kiss), Tom Flagg (Broadway's Will Rogers Follies, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Oklahoma!), Matt Leisy (St. Louis Rep's The History Boys), Anne Markt, Michael Nostrand (A&E's Emmy Award-winning Peter Pan, national tours of Jelly's Last Jam, The Mystery of Edwin Drood), Dan Sharkey (Broadway's The Music Man, Show Boat), Juliette Trafton (Christine in the national tour of Phantom of the Opera) and Charles West (Broadway's The Scarlet Pimpernel, Show Boat, Cyrano the Musical).