Today's Evil Beet Gossip

OG Member Of ‘The Fantasticks’ dies at 87

It might be time to wake grammy and pop pop, because they’re maybe going to care.

Rita Gardner, an original cast member of the long-running Off Broadway phenomenon The Fantasticks, died Saturday of leukemia at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 87.

Gardner’s death was announced by her friend and colleague Alex Rybeck on Facebook.

According to Deadline; “In 1960, Gardner, who had recently appeared Off Broadway in the Jerry Herman musical review Nightcap, was cast in what would be her signature role: Luisa, or “The Girl,” in the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical The Fantasticks. Based loosely on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 play The Romancers, the musical told the allegorical story of two fathers who trick their children – The Girl, Luisa, and The Boy, Matt – into falling in love by pretending to oppose the union.”