(Above: The cast of The Fantasticks at Cottage Theatre includes, front, Sam Anderson; middle, Mark Allen, Thomas Guastavino, Ashlee Winkler, Larry Brown; back, Keith Kessler, Sophie Blades, and Dale Flynn; photos by Emily Bly)

By Randi Bjornstad

The Fantasticks has been around since 1960, and the show is still packs them in.

After all, for the older set, the songs are part of their coming of age. Who can’t sing, or at least hum, Try to Remember and Soon It’s Gonna Rain?

For the younger ones in the crowd, it’s a forever story of love won, lost, and sometimes won again.

The premise of the story is a bit thin: Two fathers pretend to have a feud in order to encourage their teenage children to defy them by falling in love.

Kind of a reverse Romeo and Juliet, but it seems to work — until the kids figure out that the adults have been trying to deceive them, and then they get their revenge by breaking up, followed by spending the rest of the show coming back to the realization that, on their own, they really do love and need each other after all.

Sigh …

When the show premiered at the Sullivan Theatre off-Broadway, it starred the late Jerry Orbach in his first of many Broadway roles. Orbach continued his long and varied career that was capped by a starring stretch on TV’s Law & Order until his death in 2004.

The other original performers are less well-known: Rita Gardner, Kenneth Nelson, and the writer of the show’s books and lyrics, Tom Jones, who apparently appeared under a pseudonym.

Harvey Schmidt wrote the music.

That iteration ran for 17,162 performances before closing in 2002. It reappeared four years later at off-Broadway’s The Theater Center, where it logged another 4,390 shows before closing in mid-2017.

During all that time, many prominent performers cycled through the roles, including (alphabetically, not chronologically) F. Murray Abraham, Keith Charles, Kristin Chenoweth, Glenn Close, Bert Convy, Eileen Fulton, Elliott Gould, Dick Latessa, Liza Minelli, Lore Noto, and Martin Vidnovic.

The Fantasticks has been performed by now in nearly 70 countries.

The Cottage Grove version marks the end of the Cottage Theatre’s 2018 season, under the direction of Kory Weimer, often seen onstage in the company’s productions.

Weimer is joined by Keri Davis as musical director, with choreography by Sophie Blades, who also has a part in the play. Tony Rust does set design, with costumes by Rhonda Turnquist and lighting by Amanda Ferguson. Davis and Chris King also appear onstage as musicians.

The show runs for 11 performances from Nov. 30 through Dec. 16.

The Fantasticks

When: Evenings at 8 p.m. on Nov. 30, Dec. 1, 6-8, and 13-15; and matinees at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 2, 9, and 16

Where: Cottage Theatre, 700 Village Drive, Cottage Grove

Tickets: $25 for adults, $15 for youths ages 6-18 years, available at the box office, 541-942-8001, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, or online at cottagethreatre.org

Thomas Guastavino is Matt, and Ashlee Winkler plays Luisa, the young lovers in Cottage Theatre’s The Fantasticks