I Dreamed a Dream. The Les Mis Love Thread.

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 7:41pm

Just wondering if there are many fans of the iconic and epic Les miserable and if it is relevant today as it was 24 years ago?
Updated On: 8/27/09 at 07:41 PM

[kristin_bernadette]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 8:06pm

Les Miz is my absolute favorite musical! It was the first Broadway show I saw (aside from Lion King, which I was too young to remember) and it's what made me love theater!

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 8:14pm

I am ethically opposed to this thread due to the poor grammar of the OP.

But dammit, my Les Miz love shines through...

[philly03]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 8:18pm

Big Les Mis fan. Have seen it a whopping six times (although I'm sure there's PLENTY of people on here that have seen twice as much)!

[HollyGolightly2]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 8:38pm

Les Mis was the first professional show I ever saw. :) I saw a national tour when I was 8. I think I nearly fell asleep because I had no idea what the heck was going on, regardless of the fact that I grew up listening to the soundtrack. (I knew all the music, but I had no clue what the plot really was. I thought Cosette's name was 'Cassette' and that that guy in Lovely Ladies wanted a piece of a pie that Fantine had, and she wouldn't give him one. Etc.)

[Marway44]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 8:46pm

Les Miz is by far the best, the most powerful and epic musical ever written and performed on a stage. With over 100 visits it is still as great as it was when I first saw it. I still get emotional at the end, and will follow it to the end of the earth.

I am eagerly awaiting news of the new national tour. I need my Les Miz fix again real soon.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 9:04pm

Remember, Les Mis came into being even before the 1980s, in the 19th century. Of course it's still relevant, or it wouldn't be considered a classic today.

[HollyGolightly2]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 9:12pm

Yeah, exactly. It's the same with Phantom. Both are period pieces, fixed in a specific time frame and region.
Updated On: 8/27/09 at 09:12 PM

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 9:43pm

LES MIZ is far and away my #1 all-time favorite musical. NOTHING compares to it in my eyes. I have been a fan since day 1, 24 years ago. I can't imagine my life without it.

[ashbash1990]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 9:46pm

I L?ve Les Miz!

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 10:24pm

I have quite a different Les Mis experience. I had put off listening to it/seeing it because I thought it would be depressing. One day this summer, I checked out the tenth anniversary concert DVD from my library. I loved it. It has such a beautiful score that I'm obsessed with. It's just amazing.

[greatest_star_x3]

Posted: 8/27/09 at 10:34pm

I love Les Mis. It's my all time favorite musical, hands down. I was exposed to it when I was really young and fell in love with it. I've seen it 8 times and last summer I had the opprotunity to play Eponine in the school edition. I'm so attached to this show, haha.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 12:49am

i love this show! probably in my top 5... hell i even love this show despite what Blacklick Valley High School did to it! hahaha

[HollyGolightly2]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 1:11am

^ I'm in love with Blacklick Valley High's Marius.

[mariusmyhomeboy]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 1:17am

He's a legend.

I love Les Mis! It was my first Broadway show. I've always wanted to play Fantine.

[That Groovy Guy]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 6:54am

I LOVE Les Miserables! I'd love to have the cast recording in all of the available languages. I currently have it in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, in Hebrew on cassette and a few others.

[joshy]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 6:59am

Big love! My grandparents took me to see it for the first time when I was 6 - I still remember how monumental the barricades appeared to me. I've had a special place for it in my heart ever since then! Although seeing the terrible current London cast recently made me feel a bit grumpy towards it, I had to watch the 10th Anniversary dvd to remind myself how good it can be...

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 8:12am

To be honest, when I heard about a three-hour musical of the book Les Miserables, I had absolutely no desire to see it. None. However, some friends who knew we liked the theater gave us tickets, and we fell in love with it. Depending on my mood, it alternates with A Chorus Line as my favorite show (A Chorus Line usually wins).

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 10:18am

This sounds horrible, and I deserve to be beaten up for this, but to me, Les Miserables IS Broadway. Broadway just doesn't feel like Broadway without Les Mis.

Spamalot will always be my favorite musical, simply because it's Monty Python, but Les Mis is by far the one that means the most to me. And it's through Les Mis that I fell in love with so many other musicals-- often through actors who were in Les Mis.

I know the full musical by heart, read the book five times, introduced all my friends to it, and belong to a Les Miserables website. I know that's really, really creepy, but whatever...

[winston89]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 10:22am

When I was younger (don't remember the exact age) my parents took me and my brother to the World Trade Center TKTS booth where we got tickets for both Les Miserables and Beauty And The Beast. I remember VERY little of my first visit to the show at such a young age, other then the fact that I was very close in the orchestra to the stage. I also remembered having to have my father take me into the lobby during the battle scene due to the fact that the gunshots were too loud for me to handle and scared the crap out of me. Between the two shows at that young age, I enjoyed Beauty far more then I did Les Miserables. But, I feel that was to be expected considering the fact that I was too young to have enjoyed the beauty that was Les Miserables.

A few years later at the age of 15, my family took a trip to London where one of the shows that we saw was Les Miserables. Sadly, my vision of the show was tainted based upon the negative experience that I had had when I was younger so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.

When I heard that they were bringing it back to Broadway I decided to give the cast recording of the original Broadway cast another go. Having broken or lost (I don't recall which) my Ipod I was carrying around with me a portable CD player that way I had some music to listen to during my commute to school everyday. I was hooked and loved that which I was listing to. I did some research and bought the Complete Symphonic Recording and then later on the french revival recording of Les Miserables. When the revival came out I ended up seeing it a total of fifteen times and even was able to go to the closing night performance thanks to the amazingly friendly box office worker. I had gone to the box office during the week to ask about standing room after having known that the entire rest of the closing week and the closing night performance was sold out. I went there having to ask for advice as to what time I should get there. The guy told me that the price, and at first I was not sure of if he had understood my question and he then repeated the price. It turned out that he was nice enough to sell me a standing room ticket for the closing night performance earlier in the week then on the day before as per usual. Of course I didn't complain.

I do think, however, that my favorite memory of the show was with the revival and that was even before I set foot into the Broadhurst that night. I was in a theatre program in the city only a block away from the theatre district in Hell's Kitchen. During our lunch break I went to the box office to pick up my ticket for that evening's performance. During the run of Les Miserables, they had a screen that showed a live feed of what was going on onstage. As I got to the box office the scene that was going on was the bit of speak singing between Valjean and Cosette leading up to One Day More. I stayed and watched One Day More, and I knew at that very moment, I was in for a real treat that night. And, that only made me look forward more to what I was going to see that night.

I do hope the Les Miserables tour does stop somewhere near the NY area that way I am able to get my Les Miserables fix.

[viola13]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 10:25am

I love Les Mis, I only got a chance to see the revival twice, but was able to see the Czech production when I was studying abroad in Prague. The Valjean was the same one as one representing the Czech production at the 10th Anniversary Concert, at the end. lol. But it was great seeing a different staging of the show.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 10:27am

I'm still disappointed that I never saw Les Miserables on Broadway. I've seen three different local productions in the DC area (two professional, one extremely good high school show), but it's not the same thing.

[Perfectly Marvelous]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 10:36am

I love the show. My first introduction to it was the third national tour six years ago. I also was fortunate to spend some time working on a great production at Ogunquit Playhouse last year.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 11:30am

I'm still disappointed that I never saw Les Miserables on Broadway. I've seen three different local productions in the DC area (two professional, one extremely good high school show), but it's not the same thing.

I saw the revival twice, and you know? It still didn't feel like it was all that special. I'm not saying that to get a dig in at the revival, but maybe because I'd already seen the 3NT over 40 times at that point, the revival really just felt like a really important tour stop. (I guess that says a lot about the quality of the tour, but still...)

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 12:32pm

I agree, Lizzie. I never saw the revival, but the 3NT was usually as good as any time I saw it on Broadway.