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Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones wrote The
Fantasticks for a summer theatre at
Barnard College. Since its Off-Broadway
opening in May 1960, it has gone on to
become the longest running production
in the history of the American stage.
Their first Broadway show, 110 In The
Shade, was nominated for a Tony Award
and was successfully revived by the New
York City Opera. I Do! I Do!, their two
character musical starring Mary Martin
and Robert Preston, was a success on
Broadway and on tour, and is frequently
done around the country and the world.
For several years Jones and Schmidt
worked privately at their theatre
workshop, concentrating on small-scale
musicals in new and often untried
forms. The most notable of these
efforts were Celebration, which moved
to Broadway, and Philemon, which won an
Outer Critics Circle Award. They
contributed incidental music and lyrics
to a full-scale musical based on the
same subject that toured the western
states with Diana Rigg. And later yet,
it was produced in New York under the
title Colette Collage. In 1998, The
Show Goes On, a musical revue featuring
their theatre songs and starring Jones
and Schmidt, was presented at the York
Theatre to great acclaim. Mirette,
their musical based on the award-
winning children’s book, was premiered
at the Goodspeed Opera House in
Connecticut. In addition to an Obie and
the 1992 Special Tony Award for The
Fantastics, Jones and Schmidt are the
recipients of the prestigious ASCAP-
Richard Rogers Award. In February of
1999 they were inducted into the
Broadway hall-of -Fame at the Gershwin
Theatre, and on May 3rd, 1999,
their "stars" were added to the Off-
Broadway Walk of Fame outside the
Lucille Lortel Theatre.
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WON