JONES & SCHMIDT

Biography

TOM JONES (Book and Lyrics) and HARVEY SCHMIDT (Music), wrote THE FANTASTICKS for a summer theatre production at Barnard College.  After its Off-Broadway opening in May 1960, it went on to become the longest-running production in the history of the American stage and one of the most frequently produced musicals in the world.  Their first Broadway show, 110 IN THE SHADE, was nominated for  a Tony Award and was successfully revived by the New York City Opera starring Karen Ziemba, and later produced on Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company starring Audra MacDonald and John Cullum. I DO! I DO!, their two-character musical starring Mary Martin and Robert Preston, was a success on Broadway and on tour is frequently done around the country and the world.  (One production, in Minneapolis, played for 22 continuous years with the same two actors in leading roles.)

For several years Jones and Schmidt worked privately at Portfolio, their theatre workshop, concentrating on small-scale musicals in new and often untried forms.  The most notable of these efforts were CELEBRATION, which moved to Broadway, and PHILEMON, which won an Outer Critics Circle Award. They contributed incidental music and lyrics to the Off-Broadway play COLETTE starring Zoe Caldwell, then later did a full scale musical version under the title COLETTE COLLAGE.  MIRETTE, their musical based on the award-winning children’s book, was presented at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. THE SHOW GOES ON, a musical revue featuring their theatre songs and starring Jones and Schmidt, and ROADSIDE, based on a play by Lynn Riggs about Uncle Billy and his traveling tent show on a Wild West adventure were presented at the York Theatre to great acclaim. The movie version of THE FANTASTICKS, for which they did the screenplay, was released by UA/MGM. 

In addition to an Obie Award and a special Tony Award for THE FANTASTICKS, Jones and Schmidt were inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre, and their “stars” were added to the Off-Broadway Walk Of Fame outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre. In 2012 they were inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and in December of 2017 they received the Oscar Hammerstein Award.