The Off-Broadway show The Fantasticks premiered, eventually becoming the world's longest-running musical, with 17,162 performances across 42 years.

An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100.

The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the 1894 play The Romancers by Edmond Rostand, concerning two neighboring fathers who trick their children, Luisa and Matt, into falling in love by pretending to feud.