Director brings family’s long association with “The Fantasticks” to the South Baldwin Community Theatre stage
GULF SHORES _ It’s been 55 years since Martha McCree Lynch watched as two young men and her sister created songs for a show that would come to be known as “The Fantasticks.” Creators Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt worked with Linda McCree Hallberg in the living room of Hallberg and Lynch’s childhood home, tirelessly composing classics like “Try to Remember” at the family’s piano.
Lynch is directing the South Baldwin Community Theatre production of “The Fantasticks” and Hallberg will be at the show’s premiere Sept. 10 to talk with the audience and perform a song. The show continues through Sept. 19 with Friday and Saturday shows at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday shows at 2 p.m.
Lynch, who resides half of the year in Leesburg, Va., and half of the year in Fairhope, has directed more than 150 plays since 1978. Despite her family’s connection to the show, she had not directed “The Fantasticks” until 2010.
“I didn’t want to change that memory and not have the memory as good as I remembered,” Lynch said. “I had it in a glass case. I was just 12 when they were at the piano and then Linda went to New York. I had done Jones and Schmidt’s other shows, but this was just different.” She first directed “The Fantasticks” at The Theatre at Vint Hill in Warrenton, Va., in May and was asked at the beginning of 2010 to direct at SBCT. By doing these shows, she said she is creating new memories.
“I Can See It,” is Lynch’s favorite song from “The Fantasticks” a play that tells the story of a feud created by two fathers to bring their children together. The story of McCree’s family involvement in “The Fantasticks” reads like a script itself.
Hallberg, who now resides in Columbus, Ohio, was a junior at Auburn University majoring in English and theatre when one of her directors, Charles Word Baker, asked if she would work on vocals with two of his friends from the University of Texas who were writing a musical.
“They were on their way to New York and they decided to stop by Auburn and finish a show they working on, ‘Portfolio.’ It was to be a musical revue. Harvey wrote the music and Tom wrote the words,” Hallberg recalled.
The set design for “Portfolio” later renamed “The Fantasticks,” became the basis of the set. While Jones wrote the words, Schmidt, who did not read music, would create the melodies that Hallberg wrote on musical notepaper she purchased. “The only way I learned it was by rote,” she said. “We worked that way for a good two months. In May they left to go to New York while Charles and I had to finish the semester. Then, Charles and his wife Joanna and I got in the car and drove to New York by the first of June. We worked that whole summer doing auditions to get a backer, which we got, then to do auditions for a theater.”
It was the summer of 1955 and Hallberg said there was an abundance of good plays both on Broadway and off-Broadway. The show premiered off-Broadway in 1960 and was performed a record number 17,162 times in 42 years, making it the world’s longest-running musical.
“The music and the words are wonderful,” she said. “It is the story of a lot of us – young love, yearnings, drama and temptation. The things that go on as we struggle to find out who we are. I never tire of hearing it and seeing it. Every time I see it, it’s done entirely different because so much is left to the director’s discretion.”
Hallberg, who helped create the vocals for the character of Luisa never performed the role after leaving New York.
“I had one year of college left and I said I am going to back and graduate,” she said. Her romance with Jones had ended and she returned to Auburn.
“Tom and Harvey decided to stay in New York because they had really good jobs. Charles went on to direct shows in New England. I fell in love and got married and my life took another direction.”
Hallberg sold her war bonds from World War II to finance her journey to New York. “I have never looked back at that summer with regret at the cost of doing it or the cost of leaving it. It was great and it gave me a lot of confidence.”
Her advice to aspiring actors and actresses: “If you are going to make it a profession, you have to be able not to say no to it. You have to be willing to be something you’re not normally and that takes a lot of courage sometimes to do something a part demands and to enjoy it.”
“The Fantasticks” was the first show performed by South Baldwin Community Theatre in 1972, said Margaret Cooper, SBCT vice president. Her husband, Dr. Keith Cooper, played the role of El Gallo, when the theatre was housed in Foley in the old Methodist Church building.
“It is a great way to start the 2010-2011 season” Cooper said, “and we are so happy to have someone of Martha’s caliber direct the show. Her family connections to the show just make it even more special.”
The McCree’s family piano, on which many of the songs were composed, was just handed down by Lynch to her son with strict instructions that it remain in the family. Lynch calls herself a huge proponent of community theatre, even though she did not help with her first production until 1978. “Whether your passion is singing, acting or dancing, it gives you an avenue to do that. I am just thrilled to be here,” she said.
Hallberg and Lynch’s sister, Arlynn McCree del Greco of Fairhope, an artist, is donating a painting that will be used to help raise money for SBCT.