The Last Sweet Days of Isaac

The Last Sweet Days of Isaac
Original broadway cast soundtrack
Genre	musical
Date of premiere	January 26, 1970
Final show	May 2, 1971
Location	Eastside Playhouse, New York
Creative team
book	Gretchen Cryer
lyrics	Gretchen Cryer
music	Nancy Ford
director	Word Baker
producers	Haila Stoddard, Mark Wright, Duane Wilder

The Last Sweet Days of Isaac is an American Off-Broadway rock musical by Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, which premiered in 1970. It starred Austin Pendleton and Fredricka Weber, and later Alice Playten. It received positive reviews, and won three Obies, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award. It opened at the Eastside Playhouse on January 26, 1970, and closed May 2, 1971.

Isaac Bernstein (Pendleton) imagines himself at the brink of an untimely death, and determines to make every subsequent moment a perfect work of art. He carries with him a guitar, trumpet, other instruments, a tape recorder, and a camera. At age 33, he is stuck in an elevator with Ingrid (Weber), a secretary who longs to become a poet. During the hour they are stuck there, Isaac attempts to teach Ingrid his life philosophy.

Isaac, now 19, and Alice, are locked separately in prison cells. They communicate with each other and the outside through a TV camera and receiver in each cell. They attempt to make love to each other's image, when a newscast interrupts their tryst with a report of Isaac's death at a demonstration. The newscast ends, with the two left with each other's image, unsure if they are alive or dead.

The director, Word Baker, was the director for the first production of The Fantasticks.

Noted theatre critic Walter Kerr called it "My favorite rock musical". It won the 1970 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, and the 1970 Obie Award for Best Musical. Pendleton won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance. Weber won an Obie for Distinguished Performance, and the 1970 Theatre World Award. It received positive reviews at the time. Later critics have noted the dated qualities of the musical.