Les Miz Coming Back to NYC in 2 Years?
#2
Posted: 8/3/26 at 11:40am
I'd like to see a modern-dress production with a Black Valjean and a white Javert by a director with an interesting point of view. (This has been done – I just haven't seen it.)
There's also the French-language Châtelet production, which looks quite striking (though period-set and large-scale) and just had a run in Montreal and Quebec. Boublil rewrote about a quarter of the French lyrics for this, according to the NYT.
I don't really see the show working immersive production (who wants to be immersed by war and tragedy more than we already are?) or off-Bway –– it's far too big.
Updated On: 8/3/26 at 11:40 AM
#3
Posted: 8/3/26 at 12:19pm
I was tempted to make a trip to see the production in Montreal.
Hey Dottie!
Did your colleagues enjoy the cake even though your cat decided to sit on it? ~GuyfromGermany
#4
Posted: 8/3/26 at 12:38pm
Imagine Jamie Lloyd taking this on...
#5
Posted: 8/3/26 at 12:51pm
Jeffrey Karasarides said: "Imagine Jamie Lloyd taking this on..."
Javert coming out of a pool in his underwear post suicide
#6
Posted: 8/3/26 at 1:03pm
Jeffrey Karasarides said: "Imagine Jamie Lloyd taking this on..."
Unironically, I’d love to see this.
“I am furious, but I am sailing.”
#7
Posted: 8/3/26 at 1:26pm
LES MIS has never really left the American stage due to the multiple touring productions. Sadly, they no longer tour with the original set or staging, more a very cut down version of the original.
How many of these "let's put the ensemble in abbreviated gym clothing or underwear" concert style productions do we have to endure? The gimmick has been overdone now. I fear this will be another $25 million concert production that will run well for 6 months, then have. no more audience and drop all $25 million.
Where are the new shows of substance? Not juke box shows, not idiot mediocre movies with some sound alike generic pop songs ! Where are the great stories worth telling with thrilling scores?
Hamilton is a thrilling score for a play that has great substance, ditto Hadestown, dittoDear Evan Hansen, ditto Come From Away.
Concert style revivals are just reinforcing the idea that musicals are just rock concerts iperfomed in theaters -- that is not the musical theater art form American composters and authors created.
#8
Posted: 8/3/26 at 1:40pm
merle57 said: "
Where are the new shows of substance? Not juke box shows, not idiot mediocre movies with some sound alike generic pop songs ! Where are the great stories worth telling with thrilling scores?
Hamilton is a thrilling score for a playthat has great substance, dittoHadestown, dittoDear Evan Hansen, ditto Come From Away.."
Well, you just named four from the last ten years. You can add to that Strange Loop, Kimberly Akimbo, Dead Outlaw, Great Comet, Maybe Happy Ending, The Band's Visit, Suffs, and Operation Mincemeat, at the very least.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 8/3/26 at 01:40 PM
#9
Posted: 8/3/26 at 2:00pm
"There is a very exciting entirely different plan for New York to happen in two years time, not by me, but it's something that I wholeheartedly back. It's a wonderful idea and it would be utterly different. Something to look forward to."
A happy, upbeat, brightly lit production with a 20-minute megamix curtain call and confetti canons.
And no one grew into anything new, we just became the worst of what we were."
#10
Posted: 8/3/26 at 2:04pm
And French flag fans to wave during the show.
#11
Posted: 8/3/26 at 3:24pm
My only question is when can I get tickets and can I slip the producers a 20 to get them to bring the original revolve back for this?
Updated On: 8/3/26 at 03:24 PM
#12
Posted: 8/3/26 at 3:28pm
I despise the idea of an "immersive" production of Les Miserables. On the other hand, something like the Dallas Theater Center's production from a decade back...THAT I would be really excited to see in NYC. That was big and fresh and very much not stripped down.
#13
Posted: 8/3/26 at 3:33pm
If this is going to be an immersive production, how would they even go about doing it? When it comes time for the barricade scenes in act to, what are they gonna do? Give everyone a prop gun to shoot?
#14
Posted: 8/3/26 at 3:56pm
Well, the last time I went to Masquerade, Carlotta beat me with a severed head and then forced me to hold it for the entire Hanniball rehearsal and then Christine made me hold her dress for Don Juan Triiumphqnt while she sang a song so who knows maybe they will give us prop guns for the barricade.
#15
Posted: 8/3/26 at 4:00pm
Circle In The Square with a turntable.
#16
Posted: 8/3/26 at 4:02pm
Grande as Young Cosette and Bailey as Young Gavroche.
#17
Posted: 8/3/26 at 4:32pm
Kad said: "merle57 said: "
Where are the new shows of substance? Not juke box shows, not idiot mediocre movies with some sound alike generic pop songs ! Where are the great stories worth telling with thrilling scores?
Hamilton is a thrilling score for a playthat has great substance, dittoHadestown, dittoDear Evan Hansen, ditto Come From Away.."
Well, you just named four from the last ten years. You can add to that Strange Loop, Kimberly Akimbo, Dead Outlaw, Great Comet, Maybe Happy Ending, The Band's Visit, Suffs, and Operation Mincemeat, at the very least."
There's also Off-Broadway, a much more hospitable home for new musicals. Not every show needs to try to reach 8,000 people a week. If you're primarily attending Broadway, that's ignoring a much larger swath of new work.
Your mileage may vary on the quality of the shows and the overall scores, but I would classify all as musicals of substance - whether the shows were great or not:
- Mexodus
- Octet
- Three Houses
- Teeth
- The Seat of Our Pants
- Soft Power
- We Live In Cairo
- Night Side Songs
- Intimate Apparrel
- Saturday Church
- Oratorio for Living Things
- Midnight at the Never Get
- Miss You Like Hell
Perennial hits like LES MIS and FIDDLER and ANNIE will always return and occasionally they'll even make money. In the same way that the Met will always do BOHEME and CARMEN, and Radio City will lug out the Christmas Spectacular, and Billy Joel will play the same songs he's been playing for 30 years, and rep cinemas will screen 2001 and KANE and GOODFELLAS, and Sony/Marvel will continue churning out SPIDEY movies.
Updated On: 8/3/26 at 04:32 PM
#18
Posted: 8/3/26 at 9:11pm
I agree with your longer list as well as many Off-Broadway shows and did not mean to suggest my list was exhaustive. . The big expensive revivals and mindless musicals that get on Broadway but fail to recoup discourage producers from backing the shows you listed and some of the wonderful off-Broadway shows another poster listed.
I think I was reacting in horror to suggestions for an immersive Les Miz, or some other gimmick imposed on the show just to be trendy. Les Miz does not need gimmicks to make it work - it works as written, just needs excellent casting, staging, design, and commitment. The original benefited from a revolving stage, but the revolve did not make the show - it is very well written.
Similarly, Ragtime, Joe Turner, and Salesman thrill audiences when well done, and audiences flock to shows that have no gimmick, just great casting and great direction & design. I hope we can seem more.shows like these on Broadway -- not just revivals. This season we witnessed wonderful, wonderful. new plays and revivals of good plays. .
I fear the gimmicky craze harms the theatre in the long run and sets lower expectations for audiences as well as for artists.
#19
Posted: 8/3/26 at 10:00pm
I hate gimmicks too. I think the show speaks for itself and that’s why I am excited to see Les Miz at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Company next month. Their new outdoor theater looks gorgeous. 
#20
Posted: 8/3/26 at 11:14pm
Anyone remember the "Guantanamo" Les Mis with the prisoners in orange jumpsuits from maybe the mid-2000s?
#21
Posted: 8/4/26 at 12:24am
merle57 said: "LES MIS has never really left the American stage due to the multiple touring productions. Sadly, they no longer tour with the original set or staging, more a very cut down version of the original.
How many of these "let's put the ensemble in abbreviated gym clothing or underwear" concert style productions do we have to endure? The gimmick has been overdone now. I fear this will be another $25 million concert production that will run well for 6 months, then have. no more audience and drop all $25 million."
While Mackintosh appears to be absurdly miserly, a lot of this is also the current economics. We'll likely never get a Follies as lush as the original (or original London, for that matter) production, either. It's just where the business is today.
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