--- title: The Fantasticks: How Off-Broadway's Longest Running Show Made It Work description: Jan. 13, 2002: 'The Fantasticks' ends its off-Broadway run of 42 years and 17,162 performances canonical: https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-13T15:30:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:21:54.781Z article:section: History og:title: The Fantasticks: How Off-Broadway's Longest Running Show Made It Work og:description: Jan. 13, 2002: 'The Fantasticks' ends its off-Broadway run of 42 years and 17,162 performances og:url: https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbcece2a3ea2b246/6987788506f2c133d73333e1/fastasticks.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Liza Minnelli og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Fantasticks: How Off-Broadway's Longest Running Show Made It Work twitter:description: Jan. 13, 2002: 'The Fantasticks' ends its off-Broadway run of 42 years and 17,162 performances twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbcece2a3ea2b246/6987788506f2c133d73333e1/fastasticks.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The World’s Longest-Running Musical Started Small — and Stayed Small by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Jan 13, 2015 3:30 PM UTC  Liza Minnelli in a scene from a 1964 stock production of musical The Fantasticks Liza Minnelli in a scene from a 1964 stock production of musical The FantasticksRay Fishe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Jan 13, 2015 3:30 PM UTC Few thought it could ever compete with the Broadway musicals. Its tiny cast comprised eight actors and an orchestra of two — a pianist and a harpist. The set was Spartan: a small wooden platform, a bench, a trunk and a cardboard moon hung from a pole. When _The Fantasticks_ made its off-Broadway debut in 1960, at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, the reviews were bad enough that the show’s writer, Tom Jones (not _that_ Tom Jones), spent the rest of the night drinking heavily and throwing up in Central Park, he [later told the Associated Press](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fantasticks-reaches-mind-boggling-milestone). The story itself was “slight,” [according to the New York _Times_ review](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=980CE2DE153DE333A25757C0A9639C946191D6CF), which summed up the plot thus: “A boy and a girl, who are neighbors, are in love as long as a wall separates them and they believe that their fathers disapprove. Actually, their fathers want them to marry. To create an irresistible romantic mood, the fathers arrange a flamboyant abduction scene in the moonlight.” But the slight story, simply staged, became the little musical that could. When it [closed](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/nyregion/14FANT.html?ex=1012152918&ei=1&en=f1e016c0bc8bc38d) on this day, Jan. 13, in 2002, it ended a run of 42 years and 17,162 performances, making it the world’s longest-running musical. Nothing on Broadway even comes close to its tenure: the nearest is _The Phantom of the Opera_, which opened in 1988 and played its[ 10,000th performance in 2012.](http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/the-show/facts-figures) The [London production of _The Mousetrap_](https://www.the-mousetrap.co.uk/online/default.asp), now in its 63rd year, with more than 25,000 performances, is the only play to outdo _The Fantasticks_ in longevity. The Agatha Christie whodunit is the world’s longest-running show of any kind. Despite its dismal opening, _The Fantasticks_ managed to get under the skin of critics and theatergoers. Five years after it opened, [TIME heralded the musical](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,898826,00.html) as one of Broadway’s sleeper successes: --- > “” --- Its slow-but-steady success paid off for the 52 investors who gambled on the show in 1960\. One investor, Ira Kapp, [told the _New York Times_ in 2010](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/theater/03fantastick.html?pagewanted=2&8dpc&%5Fr=0) that he’d only paid up in the first place because he felt guilty for nodding off during a run-through of the musical. “That’s the luckiest investment I ever made in my life,” he said. The show’s 2002 closing, as it turned out, was just an intermission: [A revival opened four years later](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/theater/reviews/24fant.html?8dpc=&adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1156453931-gFoQwXZ3Jl5Nl86LU+19ow&pagewanted=all) at the Snapple Theater Center — still off-Broadway, but now in Midtown, with the same small cast and sparse set. Tom Jones reprised the minor role he had played nearly half a century earlier, but with one tweak: the character once billed as “Actor” was listed instead as “Old Actor.” **_Read TIME’s original assessment of_** **The Fantasticks,** **_here in the archives_**: [Broadway: What Makes Some Run](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,898826,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/"},"headline":"The World’s Longest-Running Musical Started Small — and Stayed Small","datePublished":"2015-01-13T15:30:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:21:54.781Z","description":"Jan. 13, 2002: 'The Fantasticks' ends its off-Broadway run of 42 years and 17,162 performances","url":"https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/","keywords":["broadway","Theater","Musical","Play"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbcece2a3ea2b246/6987788506f2c133d73333e1/fastasticks.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jennifer Latson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbcece2a3ea2b246/6987788506f2c133d73333e1/fastasticks.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Liza Minnelli","caption":"Liza Minnelli","creditText":"Ray Fishe—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3657605/fantasticks-history/","name":"The World’s Longest-Running Musical Started Small — and Stayed Small"}}]}] ```