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Rita Gardner, an unique solid member of the long-running Off Broadway phenomenon The Fantasticks, died Saturday of leukemia at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 87.
Gardner’s demise was introduced by her good friend and colleague Alex Rybeck on Fb.
In 1960, Gardner, who had just lately appeared Off Broadway within the Jerry Herman musical assessment Nightcap, was solid in what could be her signature position: Luisa, or “The Lady,” within the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical The Fantasticks. Based mostly loosely on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 play The Romancers, the musical advised the allegorical story of two fathers who trick their kids – The Lady, Luisa, and The Boy, Matt – into falling in love by pretending to oppose the union.
The manufacturing, at a tiny Off Broadway venue in Greenwich Village referred to as the Sullivan Road Playhouse, grew to become an enormous success, spawning a success tune (“Attempt To Bear in mind”), operating 42 years and boosting the careers of Gardner and different solid members (together with Kenneth Nelson, who went on to star in The Boys within the Band, and, most notably, Jerry Orbach, the Regulation & Order star who loved an extended profession on stage, movie and tv).
Within the years after her stint with The Fantasticks, Gardner appeared in different Off Broadway reveals together with The Cradle Will Rock (1964), To Be Younger, Gifted, and Black (1969), Jacques Brel is Alive and Effectively and Residing in Paris (1972), Metal Magnolias (1987), Wings (1993) and The Foreigner (2004).
On Broadway, she appeared within the short-lived musical A Household Affair in 1962, a 1963 revival of Pal Joey and Ben Franklin in Paris in 1964. Later Broadway credit would come with the featured position as Rosie within the 2006 stage adaptation of Adam Sandler movie comedy The Marriage ceremony Singer.
Along with quite a few regional theater credit, Gardner staged a one-woman revue referred to as Attempt to Bear in mind in New York in 2002 and once more in 2011. A deliberate revival in 2020 was canceled because of the Covid shutdown.
Tv credit included the long-running franchise that starred her outdated solid mate Orbach: She appeared on Regulation & Order, Regulation & Order: Particular Victims Unit and Regulation & Order: Prison Intent.
Along with performing, Gardner taught appearing at New York’s HB Studio and as a visitor trainer in different faculties and universities.
Gardner’s first marriage to playwright Herb Gardner led to divorce. She is survived by husband Robert Sevra.
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