Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Cameron Mackintosh announced today that four of this generation’s most talented and dynamic musical theater performers have joined the cast of his acclaimed new production of Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Tony Award-winning musical masterpiece LES MISÉRABLES, which returns to Broadway beginning Saturday, March 1 at the Imperial Theatre. Joining the cast of the new LES MIS are Ramin Karimloo (West End and current acclaimed Toronto star of Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies in London) as Jean Valjean; Will Swenson (Tony Award-nominated star of Broadway’s Hair and Priscilla Queen of the Desert) as Javert; Caissie Levy (West End and Broadway star of Ghost and Hair and Elphaba in Broadway’s Wicked) as Fantine and Nikki M. James (Tony Award winner for The Book of Mormon) as Eponine. The official opening night for LES MISÉRABLES is Sunday, March 23. Additional casting, including the roles of Marius, Cosette, Enjolras and the Thenardiers, will be announced in the coming weeks.
Said Cameron Mackintosh, “The success of LES MISÉRABLES across America and around the world has been beyond my dreams, so I am thrilled to bring the show back to Broadway 27 years after the original production with some of the finest contemporary talents in the American theatre today. Ramin Karimloo first played Jean Valjean for me in London over a year ago and earlier this month opened in the same role to tremendous acclaim in his home city Toronto. As Javert, he is matched by the magnetic Will Swenson who was such a sensation as Berger in Hair alongside our Fantine, the charismatic Caissie Levy. And Tony Award-winning Nikki James will undoubtedly break hearts as Eponine fresh from her triumph in The Book of Mormon. The rest of the company is shaping up to be just as exciting and I can’t wait for rehearsals to begin.”
This newly re-imagined LES MISÉRABLES is still breaking box-office records and receiving rave reviews across North America, grossing more than $160 million. It is currently being performed at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, starring a Canadian, Ramin Karimloo, as Jean Valjean. International productions of the new LES MISÉRABLES have been met with equal success and acclaim in the U.K, France, Spain, Japan and Korea and will open in Spain and Australia. This new version of LES MISÉRABLES, which premiered in the U.K. in 2009, inspired filmmakers to make last year’s immensely successful Oscar/Golden Globe/BAFTA winning movie.
Chris Jones in The Chicago Tribune called the new LES MISÉRABLES, “uncommonly raw, unusually emotional and strikingly intense. LES MIS stands alone in its dramatic and emotional achievements. The storytelling is formidable; the theatricalization spectacular. This new production refreshes and rethinks without sacrificing any singularity of intensity or artistic occasion. It is not to be missed.” Anita Gates in The New York Times calls this new production of LES MISÉRABLES “a splendidly reworked, unquestionably spectacular production from start to finish.” Benedict Nightingale in The London Times hails the new LES MIS “a five star hit, astonishingly powerful and as good as the original.” Peter Filichia in The Star-Ledger calls it "a dynamically re-imagined hit. This LES MISÉRABLES has improved with age” and Roma Torre on NY1 News proclaims “this new production actually exceeds the original. The storytelling is clearer, the perspective grittier and the motivations more honest. Musical theatre fans can rejoice: LES MIS is born again.” Terry Byrne in The Boston Globe said, “The new production of LES MISÉRABLES qualifies as a truly extraordinary theatrical experience. It is nothing less than stunning. This production is so breathtaking, you simply won’t want it to end.” And Richard Ouzounian in The Toronto Star wrote, “This new production of LES MISÉRABLES is superbly revised. Inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo himself, this new staging moves with both tremendous agility and equal force. Time and time again, I found myself gasping in admiration for the images that filled the stage, not just for their own beauty, but for the power they brought to the story. Thrilling and brilliant.”
Based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel, LES MISÉRABLES is an epic and uplifting story about the survival of the human spirit. The magnificent score includes the classic songs “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” “Stars,” “Bring Him Home,” “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” “One Day More,” “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” “Master Of The House” and many more.
Cameron Mackintosh’s production of LES MISÉRABLES is written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg and is based on the novel by Victor Hugo. It has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, original adaption by Trevor Nunn and John Caird and additional material by James Fenton. The original LES MISÉRABLES orchestrations are by John Cameron with new orchestrations by Christopher Jahnke and additional orchestrations by Stephen Metcalfe and Stephen Brooker.
The new production is directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell, designed by Matt Kinley inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo with costumes by Andreane Neofitou and Christine Rowland, lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Mick Potter and projections by Fifty-Nine Productions.
The original production of LES MISÉRABLES can now only be seen in London where it’s currently in its 29th record-breaking year. LES MISÉRABLES originally premiered at the Barbican Theatre in a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company in October 1985. It transferred to the Palace Theatre in December of that year and then moved to its current home at the Queen’s Theatre in April 2004 where it is still playing to standing room only. In October 2006 LES MISÉRABLES took over the title of World’s Longest Running Musical followed by two other Cameron Mackintosh productions, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and Cats.
The original New York production of LES MISÉRABLES premiered first at the Broadway Theatre on March 12, 1987, later moving to the Imperial on October 17, 1990, where it played until May 18, 2003, for a total Broadway run of 6680 performances.
There have been four U.S. national touring companies of LES MISÉRABLES that have played more than 200 cities. Broadway audiences welcomed LES MISÉRABLES back to New York on November 9, 2006 where the show played the Broadhurst Theatre until its final performance on January 6, 2008. LES MISÉRABLES is the 4th longest-running Broadway production of all time.
Seen by nearly 65 million people worldwide in 42 countries and in 22 languages, LES MISÉRABLES is undisputedly one of the world’s most popular musicals ever written, with new productions continually opening around the globe, with seven more currently scheduled. The worldwide gross for LES MISÉRABLES is $2.5 billion. There have been 47 cast recordings of LES MISÉRABLES, including the multi-platinum London cast recording, the Grammy Award-winning Broadway cast and complete symphonic albums and live recording of the New 25th Anniversary Production and now the motion picture soundtrack which has sold close to 1.5 million copies and has topped the Billboard and iTunes charts. The DVD’s of the 10th Anniversary at the Royal Albert Hall and the 25th Anniversary at The O2 have sold millions of copies worldwide.
There are over 2,500 productions of the Les Misérables School’s Edition scheduled or being performed by over 125,000 school children in the UK, US and Australia, making it the most successful musical ever produced in schools.
In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the legendary musical LES MISÉRABLES made theatrical history with an international first - three different productions in London at the same time. The Original Production at the Queen’s Theatre, the acclaimed New 25th Anniversary Production at the Barbican (where the show originally premiered) and a celebratory concert at The O2 Arena. The O2 Concert was presented in over 500 cinemas throughout the United States on November 17, 2010 and is now available on Blu-ray DVD through Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
The 2012 Universal film version of LES MISÉRABLES co-produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Working Title Films, and directed by Tom Hooper, is one of the most successful musical films ever. The film received the Golden Globe Award as Best Picture (Musical/Comedy) and received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won three Academy Awards. The film’s soundtrack debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Album chart and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.
The sumptuous definitive new book, Les Misérables – From Stage to Screen from Applause Books tells the story so far of the World’s Longest Running Musical in words, pictures and rare facsimile memorabilia and is written by Benedict Nightingale and Martyn Palmer, with a foreword by Cameron Mackintosh.
Tickets to LES MISÉRABLES are available at www.telecharge.com or by phone at (212) 239-6200 or (800) 447-7400. Ticket prices range from $57 - $139.
http://www.lesmis.com/broadway/
Photo: Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean. ©2013 Matthew Murphy.
2013-10-22
Toronto: Ramin Karimloo will head cast of "Les Misérables" on Broadway