The much-loved musical, The Fantasticks, opens the 87th season of the Chattanooga Theatre Centre September 24. The Fantasticks is both a spoof and an honest romance. The story looks at young love in the practical way: "Why would anyone ever be so silly and naive?" and the romantic way: "Isn't it wonderful be in love and feel so impenetrable?" Using threads and ideas from Kabuki, Commedia del Arte, Vaudeville and other theatrical styles, it weaves a tapestry of both the jaded, cynical realists and the lovers and dreamers. The Fantasticks! -- the world's longest-running musical and the longest-running show in American theater history – won an Obie Award and a Special Tony Award in 1992.