Les Miz Coming Back to NYC in 2 Years?

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Immersive? Off-broadway?

I was tempted to make a trip to see the production in Montreal.

Jeffrey Karasarides said: "Imagine Jamie Lloyd taking this on..."

Javert coming out of a pool in his underwear post suicide

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.

"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.

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

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

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.

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.