The classic off-Broadway musical fable tells the story of two young next-door neighbors, Matt and Luisa, whose fathers secretly conspire to bring them together by staging a fake feud and forbidding their romance, correctly guessing that reverse psychology will make the young lovers fall for each other. After a mysterious traveling performer named El Gallo helps stage a fake abduction to let Matt 'rescue' Luisa, the fathers' scheme initially works, but the couple's storybook romance is soon tested by the harsher realities and disillusionments of the wider world beyond their garden wall. Told with a bare-bones set, a narrator, and a small band, the show is a poetic, bittersweet meditation on the difference between innocent first love and mature, lasting love. Featuring the standard Try to Remember, it remains the longest-running musical in the world and a perennial favorite for its simplicity and emotional depth.

Guerrieri Hall