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Rita Gardner, an early cast member of the long-running Off-Broadway success The Fantasticks, died Saturday of leukemia at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 87 years old.
Gardner’s death was publicized on Facebook by her colleague and friend Alex Rybeck.
Gardner, who had previously starred Off-Broadway in Jerry Herman’s musical comedy Nightcap, was cast in what would become her trademark role: Luisa, or “The Girl,” in the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical The Fantasticks.
The musical, partially based on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 drama, The Romancers, portrayed the allegorical story of two dads who deceive their children – The Girl, Luisa, and The Boy, Matt – into falling in love by appearing to oppose the union.
The performance, which ran for 42 years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, was a major success, creating a popular song (“Try To Remember”) and launching the careers of Gardner and other cast members (including Kenneth Nelson, who went on to star in The Boys in the Band, and, most notably, Jerry Orbach, the Law & Order star who enjoyed a long career on stage, film, and television).
Gardner later featured in Off-Broadway musicals such as The Cradle Will Rock (1964), To Be Young, Gifted, and Black (1969), Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1972), Steel Magnolias (1987), Wings (1993), and The Foreigner (1994).
She starred on Broadway in the short-lived musical A Family Affair in 1962, in a 1963 production of Pal Joey, and in Paris in 1964. Later on Broadway, she played Rosie in the 2006 stage adaption of Adam Sandler’s cinematic comedy The Wedding Singer.
Gardner, in addition to several regional theatrical credits, performed a one-woman cabaret called Try to Remember in New York in 2002 and again in 2011. The Covid closure forced the cancellation of a planned resurrection in 2020.
She appeared on Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, all of which starred her old co-star Orbach.
Gardner, in addition to performing, taught acting at New York’s HB Studio and as a guest teacher at various schools and institutions.
Gardner’s first marriage to writer Herb Gardner ended in divorce. She is survived by her husband, Robert Sevra.
