HARVEY SCHMIDT
In Memoriam
EULOGY by Tom Jones: The first memory I have of Harvey Schmidt was at the University of Texas when he came to audition for the Curtain Club. Tall and skinny with a pronounced twang, He apologetically explained that he was not an actor, but he loved the theatre and he could play the piano and do posters. Eureka! Actors we didn't need. Actors we had. (Boy, did we have actors.) But a piano player! A poster maker! We signed him up and put him to work. Continue reading…
In Memoriam Features
American Theatre Magazine by Tom Jones
Remembering Harvey Schmidt (Part One) by Ellis Nassour
Remembering Harvey Schmidt (Part Two) by Ellis Nassour
Harvey Lester Schmidt by David W. Wieting
THE FANTASTIC(K) HARVEY SCHMIDT by Peter Filichia: We lost a great one on February 28th. Composer Harvey Schmidt can truly be called sui generis. Whenever he and lyricist Tom Jones originated a project, Schmidt provided a distinctive and delicate sound that sounded like no one else’s. Continue reading…
REMEMBERING HARVEY SCHMIDT by Michael Glenn-Smith: 2018 has been a melancholy year for me. The most important thing that happened was the loss of a dear friend. On February 28th, my wonderful Harvey Schmidt passed away. Continue reading…
A FANTASTICKS MEMORY by Ken Kantor: One of the great frustrations when doing THE FANTASTICKS down at Sullivan Street was that everything that happened during a performance of a unique nature had happened sometime before. You wanted to feel that something you participated in was happening for the first time. Unlikely in a show that had run for so many decades. But it finally happened while I was doing El Gallo during one memorable weekend performance. Continue reading…
In Memoriam Videos
CBS remembers Harvey Schmidt
Kristin Chenoweth remembering Harvey Schmidt singing “Soon It’s Gonna Rain”
Obituary video
Harvey's gravestone is in the family cemetery at the Perry United Methodist Church, in Perry, Texas, which his grandfather helped build, hauling timber from Houston by ox cart. The design is by Harvey's longtime assistant, John Schak who attended the funeral service.
John Schak: “The service was at the Perry United Methodist Church, a classic white clapboard structure, with a steeple and American Gothic arched windows. The day was as idyllic as you could possibly ask for - sunny, with a welcome breeze - the church sitting all alone out in the country, a stand of trees to the west, and to the east a vista across empty fields to the horizon, under a perfect blue canopy of sky dotted with puffy white clouds. And in the nearby graveyard, where his body was interred next to his parents, his brother, and many relatives, there was a sprinkling of wildflowers - white and purple - FANTASTICKS colors . . .
His friend Rob Landes and his nephew Paul Epply-Schmidt played his music on the old wooden upright, and hymns that he had chosen (having been used in favorite Hollywood movies) were sung by the congregation, multiple generations of relatives from his extended German farm family. And I read the beautiful eulogy that Tom had written.
After the service and the burial, everyone gathered in the Fellowship Hall for the lunch Harvey had requested: barbecue from Whups, in nearby Marlin, followed by peach cobbler, and Hershey's Kisses.
I don't go to funerals, but this was so simple and moving that I would not have missed it. It gave true and resonant meaning to the concept of "being laid to rest," in the embrace of family, living and dead.”