Featured Photo: The cast of “The Fantasticks” pose around the set Thursday, Feb. 26, in the Harriet Fulton Theatre in Martin, Tennessee. (Photo credit / Paul Pharris)

A tale of romance, comedy, pain and joy took place in the UTM Vanguard Theatre’s “The Fantasticks”, starting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 26, in the Harriet Fulton Theatre.

The book for “The Fantasticks” was written by Tom Jones and the music, composed by Harvey Schmidt,  included many comedic and memorable musical numbers that are deserving of fame.

The story focuses on a boy and girl who are in love but separated from each other by the wall that is built between their mothers’ gardens. Their mothers actually intended to wed the the two, and asked the help of the narrator, who is also known as “El Gallo,” to assist them in making their love blossom.

The rest of the story follows the difficulties that stem from the boy and girl’s relationship with each other, showing how they are both imperfect and immature. Despite these impurities, they still manage to care about each other in the end.

As a rendition of the longest running musical of all time, the UTM Visual and Theatre Arts Department worked hard to produce the best performance it deserved.

Even though “The Fantasticks” is a shorter, low-budget musical that does not rely too much on spectacle, director and theatre professor Melanie Hollis said that the production still faced some hurdles.

“We got caught with a week and a half off for the snow, so we lost all of that rehearsal time. We basically put the show together in three weeks and the music was very difficult,” she said.

Despite the odds, Madison Butner, who portrayed the boy’s mother, and Madison Bixler Pollock, a UTM 2025 dance alumna, were able to help the actors learn their vocal and dance numbers on time for the performances.

The performance included many entertaining musical and dance numbers throughout its run. The beginning and ending number, “Try to Remember,” was a gentle song that beautifully set up the tone of the rest of the play.

Later numbers displayed the dynamic characters and their motivations. For example, “Much More” showed the girl’s desire to be someone special through Madalene Sisemore’s vocals and character acting.

In Act 2, one of the more notable songs was “Round and Round,” where Hollis and Sisemore danced with each other at faster and more alarming rates as the boy underwent increasingly painful injuries.

The set constructed by Micah Barnes was fairly simple yet very appropriate for the story. Almost every prop the cast used came from a single chest that sat to the right of the stage. The most prominent prop, however, was not a weapon or tool, but a character known as “the mute.”

Portrayed by Brianna McCrudden, the mute would act as the wall for much of the first act, standing in one place as if she were an actual object. Throughout the rest of the play, McCrudden would listen in and give nods of approval and hold up all necessary props when needed. It made for a nice touch of comedy that helped the play feel unique.

“I had to figure out how to be extremely expressive without ever saying a word while maintaining being very animated throughout the show. Because I’m on stage for the full two hours, and it gets kind of exhausting. But it’s just figuring out how to stay that upbeat kind of character,” McCrudden, a junior political science major from Jackson, Tenn., said.

One of the performance’s strongest qualities was the chemistry between the different cast members. Maddie Butner and Morgan Akira, who portrayed the two mothers, played off of each other very well as they would fight each other then laugh it off on a scene-to-scene basis.

Another notable example was the comedic exaggerations made by “the old actor” and “the man who dies,” who were portrayed by Maggie Moffett and Emma Doster, respectively. As old, retired actors, the two would get into mischief and act like bumbling fools. This is especially evident when they faked their deaths, where they would yell excruciatingly before thumping to the floor.

Kyeler Penick, a senior agriculture engineering major from Martin, was pleased with this aspect of the show as his final undergraduate performance.

“We’re in a very close cast and we all have a lot of good chemistry together. There’s a few new people that I’ve been working with this time, but it was just instant with them,” Penick said.

After this successful production, the UTM Visual and Theatre Arts Department plans to hold more performances such as Duncan Hollis’s senior show later on in the spring 2026 semester.