The Arena Stage brings a new twist to The Fantasticks, the world’s longest running musical.

By Julie LaPorte

Michael Stone Forrest, Timothy Ware, Nate Dendy, Sebastian La Cause, Addi McDaniel, and Jerome Lucas Harmann. Photo by Scott Suchman.

The Arena Stage and Director Amanda Dehnert are presenting an innovative re-imagining of The Fantasticks, the Off-Broadway play that earned the title of the world’s longest running musical. This is a story about a boy and a girl who defy their father’s feuding to fall in love during the magical moonlit nights, but who must then face the harsh realities of the sunlit world. The Fantasticks is playing at the Lincoln Theatre through January 10.

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The Fantasticks is a fanciful take on the traditional boy-meets-girl story.

Sebastian La Cause, Timothy Ware, and Addi McDaniel in The Fantasticks at Arena Stage, November 20- January 10. (Photo by Scott Suchman)

The Fantasticks is a fanciful take on the traditional boy-meets-girl story. After their fathers forbid their love and build a wall to separate the two, Matt and Luisa are led by El Gallo from the wistfulness of “when life was slow and oh so mellow” to the reality that “without a hurt the heart is hollow.”

Popular songs, such as “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” fill the score. Loosely based on the play The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by Edmond Rostand, the story is centered around youthful love and learning to face the realities the world presents.

“The Fantasticks is profoundly about how to be human,” Dehnert said. “The show comes from a place of innocence. It teaches us how to live with both the happiness and the hurt that life can introduce, while at the same time it dares us to face both and find our way in the world.”

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