Harvey Schmidt

Notable

American composer for musical theatre and illustrator. He is best known for composing the music for the longest running musical in history, The Fantasticks, which ran off-Broadway 1960-2002. All of Schmidt's major musicals were written with lyricist Tom Jones who he met at the University of Texas while studying art. The work the duo is known for is The Fantasticks which ran off-Broadway for a total of 17,162 performances. In 1992 he received the Tony Award, Tony Honor for "The Fantasticks," then in its 33rd year. The team followed with the Broadway musical 110 in the Shade in 1963, which ran for 330 performances on Broadway and earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist for Schmidt and Jones. I Do! I Do! followed in 1966, and ran for 560 performances. Jones and Schmidt were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist and Best Musical. Schmidt and Jones wrote a musical of Thornton Wilder's Our Town and it took them thirteen years to write, only to have the rights pulled by Wilder's nephew. Schmidt was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Schmidt and Jones were both inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in July 2012. Link to Wikipedia biography