This summer, when I set out to decide what musical we should do I was haunted by the success of Mary Poppins. The resounding chorus of praise that we received put the pressure on us to follow up this year with another potential smash hit. I looked for a musical that was recognizable, challenging, and worthy of our goal to do more than just entertain. So during our summer music camp, we announced this year’s musical, Les Miserables. It checked off each of these pre-qualifications and I truly believed we had the manpower to pull it off.
When you tell people you are working on a show of this magnitude they usually respond with comments like “Wow, you are really brave or really dumb.” I without hesitation would respond in the affirmative and invite them to come find out which turned out to be more accurate at the performance. Thanks to the countless hours of many community volunteers and the incredibly hard work of Holbrook’s finest students I am confident that this show will be another smash hit and one that you will want to come see more than once while it plays for 1 weekend only.
Victor Hugo, the author of the original novel, was inspired to write Les Miserables after being inspired by the following incident. In 1845, on the streets of Paris, he observed the same incident that triggers the novel's action. On a sunny but cold day, he saw an impoverished man being arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. As the man stood on the street, an ornate carriage pulled up beside him. Inside there was a dazzlingly beautiful woman dressed in velvet, playing with a child hidden under ribbons, embroidery, and furs. The impoverished man stared at the woman in the carriage, but she was totally unaware of him. Hugo wrote that he saw this man as, "The spectre of misery, the ghostly forewarning in full light of day, in the sunshine, of the revolution, still plunged in the shadows of darkness, but emerging from them. The moment he became aware of her existence, while she remained unaware of his, a catastrophe was inevitable."
This inequality between the rich and the poor is often a cause for revolution. Paris in 1832 was no different. Victor Hugo saw the universality of this, saying about his book, "I don't know if it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbor slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers…"
We hope that when the final curtain drops you leave our show willing to look down to lift another and help us make the world a better place one kind deed at a time.
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes.
Tomorrow Comes!
Kyle Gardner
Director
