TRY TO REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME THE MAGIC HAPPENED
This classic fable about a boy, a girl, their parents, and a love that grows with each season, returns to CRT for its 60th Season. The Fantasticks inspires us all to return to a time when we allowed ourselves to be overcome with hope and enchantment. This musical masterpiece includes timeless songs like, “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.” ​
Musical, Romance

Director’s Note

​“Round and round,
‘Neath a magic spell…
Life is a colorful carousel.”

And here we are in 2025, coming full circle, revisiting this magical, colorful, and timeless American classic for CRT’s 60th season.

When discussing The Fantasticks, it’s hard for me not to draw parallels with another classic of the American stage (and one of my favorites): Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Wilder’s play was an important influence on writers Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt as they began drafting their now-famous and long- running musical. Jones and Schmidt even adapted Wilder’s play into a musical, Grover’s Corners. The similarities are striking: a simple yet imaginative set; a central “master of ceremonies”; a girl and a boy who fall in love; and the parents who love them. Both deal thematically with the illusions and realities of love and the time it takes to learn the difference—the cycle of life reveals itself to be a complicated but beautiful ride. Like all good stories or allegories, these tales provide different lessons to us depending on our age. In the case of The Fantasticks, if we are young, we may see ourselves as Matt and Luisa;
when we’re parents, Bellomy and Hucklebee. I certainly recognize myself at times in Henry and Mortimer! The story takes Matt and Luisa round and round this enchanting and at times frightening life and brings them, and us, full circle to whomever and whenever we are. Beneath the whimsical romanticism, the theatrical magic, and the seasonal and cyclical imagery lies a simple but universal story about our journey through life, with all its joys and sorrows and the lessons we learn. Life can be a colorful carousel, but it can also be reckless and cruel, and like a carousel, things that go round and round by definition come full circle, and we, hopefully, arrive a little wiser. And that is why by the end of our ride we hopefully recognize that,

“Deep in December, it’s nice to remember
The fire of September that made us mellow
Deep in December, our hearts should remember.
And follow…”