Fantastic finale for beloved show

NEW YORK The off-Broadway phenomenon The Fantasticks will pack away its confetti and paper moon this summer, ending a record-breaking, fantastic run.

Producers of the stalwart, lowtech show say the musical will close May 3, the 55th anniversary of the show’s opening in 1960. It will have run 20,672 performances in two New York venues.

The tale, a mock version of Romeo and Juliet, concerns a young girl and boy, secretly brought together by their fathers and an assortment of odd characters, including a rakish narrator, an old actor, an Indian named Mortimer and a mute.

Scores of actors have appeared in the show, from the opening cast that included Jerry Orbach and Rita Gardner to such stars as Ricardo Montalban, Kristin Chenoweth and Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham.

For nearly 42 years, it chugged along at the 153-seat Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, finally closing in 2002 after 17,162 performances — a victim both of a destroyed downtown after 9/11 and a new post-terrorism, edgy mood.

In 2006, The Fantasticks found a new home in The Snapple Theater Center in the heart of Times Square. The show is cheap to run — with a cast of eight, two musicians, a cardboard moon and guy who sprinkles confetti — but it has always struggled to stay filled in the shadow of Broadway houses.

It long ago won the title of world’s longest-running musical. The Phantom of the Opera is Broadway’s longest-running show, with some 11,000 shows. The only rival to The Fantasticks is The Mousetrap in London, the longest-running show in the world, having passed 25,000 performances.