Les Miz School Edition Changes

[Copeman63]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 1:38pm

What was cut from the show for the school edition? I'm sure it's alot, but hopefully Mdm. Thenardier's "Master of the House" verse is still intact!

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 2:16pm

Yes, her verse is still in. From what I remember, they mostly cut verses and sung vingettes from the show. Specifically I remember a verse of "Lovely Ladies" being cut, Javert's half of "Confrontation," and a verse of "Stars." I know that there were more cuts, but they escape me at the moment.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 2:25pm

Whatever's cut in the recent version of Les Miz on Broadway and London is cut from the school edition as well. Some that come to mind are parts of the Rue Plumet sequence. But "Little Children" is still in, I believe, don't know why it was cut in the revival.

~Steven

[BroadwayEnthusiast2]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 2:33pm

i think my school just did the regular version, not the school version.

[jam_man]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 2:35pm

I've done the student version twice. The major cuts are:

The opening grunts ("uh-UH")
The second verse of "Come To Me" ("Hurry near, another day is dying...")
The Valjean/Javert counterpoint confrontation (though it's a common one to reinstate, as it was the second time I was in it)
The entire little scene after Cossette leaves and before "Master of the House"
The first verse of "Stars"
A verse from "In My Life"
The pipe and drum opening of the 2nd act
Marius' verse and the bridge from "A Little Fall of Rain"
Almost all of Dog Eat Dog, except Thenardier finding Marius' ring
The Wedding Chorale

There are other little lines here and there cut and a lot of the "excess" music, but it's still pretty much the same show. Other than "The Confrontation" and "Dog Eat Dog," nothing plot or character-wise is missing.

[Copeman63]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 2:59pm

Thanks for the info guys! Glad to hear Mdm Thenadier will still do my favorite verse!

Lance

[IMissNYC]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 5:30pm

I'm thinking of doing this with my high school theatre group. Any thoughts on if it's a good show to direct for 12-18 year olds?

[yellibean2]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 7:31pm

I've only seen the school edition once (and it was quite sufficient) and I don't know if I saw an extra-abridged version but it felt like not a single song was intact. And it still seemed to drag on forever.

[SarahBeth]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 10:33pm

Unless this just a choice made by the school I think I remember Bring Him Home to be set in the sewers.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 10:35pm

I've seen two LMSEs and neither put BHH in the sewers. Anyway, why would it be there? He doesn't get to the sewers until after the battle, and there's no reason to sing/pray for Marius after the battle which might kill him.

[SarahBeth]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 10:41pm

It didn't bug me at the time I was watching it since I wasn't familiar with the show then, but once I got more familiar and thought back to it that seemed weird to me.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 1:54am

Our director put most of the cuts back when I was in the school edition. I'm glad he did too because most of the cuts bother me. We did the full prologue including the grunts and the little innkeeper scene and all of "What Have I Done?". We did all of Fantine's death, all of "The Confrontation", all of "Castle on a Cloud", all of "Stars" and all of "Dog Eats Dog". The only cuts that he kept were the cuts for "In My Life" and pretty much just the ones during all the battles in the second act and the cuts for the wedding scene. Other than that he put everything back.

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 1:56am

I would only recommend doing Les Miz in a high school if you have some pretty terrific singers. There is a lot of high belting that can be very hard on developing voices. Plus no one wants to hear a Valjean that can't hit his notes.

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 3:55am

As I've noted previously, I played "Valjean" in my high school's production in '05. We worked the cuts that were originally given -- not as many as I'm reading about nowadays, I'm not sure WHAT that's about, but anyway -- and it was WONDERFUL. From what I can remember, I think the running time of the show was approx. 2 hours and 50 minutes.

[dramarama2]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 6:24am

"Plus no one wants to hear a Valjean that can't hit his notes"

Well...when I worked backstage as stage manager at my nephew's school's production of Les Mis. I recall a hillarious case of Valjean not quite hitting his notes.
When Valjean is mayor, and Javert approaches him about a case (Mistaken identity-Valjean etc.) and Valjean (The real one) confesses and reveals he is the real valjean and says "Who am I ? I'm Jean Valjean!", the (poor) guy hit a high note...but failed miserably.
it sounded more like...

"Who am I? I'm Jean Val-Jeouneauoneytuhfklsufbsgdkjfbsyfknef!"

He sounded like a constipated hillbilly trying to yodel!

What's funnier is, he tried to make it seem like it was part of the show, by ending it with a loud "Ha-ha!"

Hillarious stuff...

Good thing I've got it on video!

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 11:51am

Somewhere out there there's an audio clip of Colm Wilkinson's voice totally exploding on the high note of "2-4-6-0-1!" I've heard it; it's painful. So it happens to everyone.

[me2]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 4:18pm

Before it was even available, I was directing at a high school. My students wanted for us to do it. I just couldn't see myself sending my kids home to say, "Mom, I'm playing a prostitute in the school play!!!"

I'm not saying high schools shouldn't do it, but it would have been hard in my community.

Of course, on the final night of The Pajama Game, when Prez (who came from a very conservative family) tries to pull one of the girls into the woods, the girl didn't just come out and say her line "Be careful of them woods, honey. There's wolves down there" like we'd practiced. Oh no, she came out buttoning up her top. Then to make matters worse, Prez came out zipping up his pants. I almost DIED. It was hilarious and so wrong all at the same time.
Broadway Mouth's Broadway Blog: A Hopefully Intelligent Discussion

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 4:23pm

Somewhere out there there's an audio clip of Colm Wilkinson's voice totally exploding on the high note of "2-4-6-0-1!" I've heard it; it's painful. So it happens to everyone.

I've heard that. It's amusing, painful, and hysterical.

I remember when Simon Bowman took over as Valjean in London back in 2000 he wasn't hitting the high note. Apparently it's optional, but most Valjeans sing it higher anyway.