The Fantasticks is making its Broadway debut with a reimagined family dynamic, a queer central romance and two mothers determined to guide their sons toward happiness.
Now in previews at the Hayes Theater, the romantic comedy stars Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer and Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles as matriarchs who scheme on behalf of their respective sons, played by Maxim Chlumecky and Nathan Levy.
Director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli said the new production has been designed to offer a different perspective without losing the qualities familiar to audiences who already know the musical.
“It’s a perfect musical,” Gattelli said of the original. “The book is perfect. The score is perfect. There is a new coat of paint on the production that I’m hoping lifts it and elevates it, but for the people who know and love it, it’s all still there.”
A Personal Return for Zane Phillips
Zane Phillips takes on the role of narrator El Gallo, making this production a particularly meaningful return. Phillips said The Fantasticks earned him his Equity card at Kansas City Rep exactly 10 years ago.
“I’m sorry to everyone who is not controlled by destiny, but they have me in a headlock,” he joked.
The connection also shapes his performance of “Try to Remember.” Phillips said he approaches the song by reaching back toward an earlier, more innocent stage of his own life as an actor, before acquiring some of the pain he now carries.
That feeling connects him to the two young men at the center of the story. Phillips described the characters as embodying a kind of youthful foolishness that can prompt audiences to recognize their own past selves.
“You can’t help but smile at and say, ‘Yeah, I used to be like that,’” he said.
The Mothers Move to the Center
For Miles and Kritzer, the production’s matriarch-led approach creates a new way to examine parental love, protection and the limits of what a parent can control.
Miles said playing the parent of a gay child involves exploring a distinct form of care, rooted in an awareness that the outside world may cause harm in different ways.
“So I’m going to love you and protect you and I’m going to hold you this close and I’m going to overwater you to show you how much I love you,” Miles said. “It’s been interesting to explore how that manifests.”
Kritzer emphasized that even the most loving parent cannot prevent every painful experience. She said children and other loved ones must be given the freedom to choose, make mistakes, laugh, love and get hurt.
“All of these themes in The Fantasticks are universal,” Kritzer said. “It’s a queer love story and we’re so excited to be a part of it and we hope that people love it as much as we do.”
David Patrick Kelly, who plays the eccentric Shakespearean actor Henry, singled out the work of Miles and Kritzer. He said listening to them perform together feels as though they have been singing alongside one another for years, while the mothers’ story strikes him as both fresh and emotionally deep.
Kelly also brings his own long relationship with the material. He recalled living near the original theater and regularly walking past it while playing rock and roll on Bleecker Street. His first exposure may have come from hearing other performers interpret the songs on The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s.
Returning to the music now, he said, produces “a crazy Proustian memory of stuff coming back.”
A New Physical Language for The Mute
Ahmad Simmons plays The Mute, the character who physically embodies the wall separating the two central families. Simmons is also the production’s associate choreographer.
Although he has previously appeared in productions without speaking, including Illinoise, Simmons said this role places unusual weight on the precision and delicacy of every gesture.
“You have to communicate the emotional depth of each moment in the show with just a shift of the body,” he said.
Simmons also teased surprises made possible by the production’s reinvention of The Mute. Without disclosing specifics, he said the character will be able to do things not previously possible, giving the creative team an opportunity to expand the role.
ShowBiz Take
This Broadway debut is not simply presenting The Fantasticks in a new venue. Its significance lies in how the creative team is reframing the story while deliberately preserving the original book and score.
By centering two mothers, presenting the young romance as a queer love story and broadening the physical possibilities of The Mute, the production is using character and performance to give familiar material a different emotional focus. At the same time, the cast’s personal connections—from Phillips’ career milestone to Kelly’s memories of the songs—tie this reimagining directly to the musical’s past.
That balance between recognition and reinvention is the production’s defining proposition during its previews at the Hayes Theater: the story remains, but the families, relationships and perspectives carrying it to Broadway have been newly configured.