Les Miz- School Edition

What is cut out of the show?
Thanks in advance!
-darling

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Master of the House has not been taken out. Stars is shortened and a few other things. Other than that, the show is intact.

I've done this version twice already, if you have any specific questions you can just PM me, but there is definitely a noticeable amount missing in this version compared to the one you may be used to.

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They toned down Mme Thenardiers lines, however.

Yeah -- at the end of the song, she simply echoes "everybody raise a glass" rather than shouting "raise it up the master's ass."

Like some others have said here, I didn't find the other cuts too drastic.

I was in this last summer, and the differences were very minor, and very noticable at all! And Mme. Thenardier's lines are all still in tact (I think some schools might alter them, though they really shouldn't!).

Does Madame still say "And life long ****"?

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Died-hard Les Miz fans may want to stay far far away from this.

All the swearing was in the one I saw...and I was AMAZED by how well the high school did. Of course they had TONS of money...and the singers were great. But other than that, most of the schools are kind of...well...bad...

"What is cut out of the show?

Its dignity."

LOL. I actually kind of have to agree. The cuts aren't huge, really, but they do a nice job of completely watering down and sucking the magic out of some great moments. They also make some transitions really ridiculous (the way they cut "Stars" is coming to mind). Not to mention sitting through teenagers doing this show is a tad difficult. I'm sure there's the rare gem of a youth community theatre or high school pulling it off, but I think most of the time...ouch.

Um...

If community/high schools do not like the School Edition cuts, they should go with the "non" school edition if the talent is present...because really, the alterations deal more with vocal ability (the entire score was lowered two full steps, as well as cuts to vocally intricate parts in songs) then morality( "raise it up the master's ass, life long ****, seven days at sea can make you hungry for a poke"). My community theatre did a production with 14-21 year olds, and we all got scripts and CD (which was too terrible) for the School Edition. It wasn't long until we realized that the "dignity" of the show was lost, and promptly ordered the regular version. If you have the talent, don't waste it on school edition.

Don't know what all the fuss is about the LMSE. First of all MTI released the rights and the show is pretty much in tact, with the exception of a few modifications. Schools have gotten very creative in personalzing this show within the guidlines.

The point some people are missing is what this mean to the schools and communities. Some may know that I work with a Les Miz's Craig Schulman who has done several LM workshops/ master classes since the rights have been released. He is an amazing asset to bring into this. I lost count at 500 school productions since the release.

Is it a tough show to reproduce on a high school level? You bet, especially the male roles. 16-18 yr. old males are not as vocally mature to handle the score. BUT, there have been some wonderful exceptions.

I have had the good fortune to attend a handful of the workshops and school productions and I can tell you first hand that High School Les Miserables productions have been by far the best attended, most popular shows for these school.

Not to be overlooked is the fact that it is one great experience for young thespians to explore. I've seen the best and the not so best of them.

The participating students benefit as it is a great opportunity for several male/ female principle roles , the community supports it and if it's well publicized the school benefits from it. Sure, it's high school, and it's not Broadway, but imo it's a nice change from Grease. Just my opinion.

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I don't know what version of the show you did, but the high school version of Les Mis is definitely not under two hours. I was in one production with a LOT of cuts and I thought the high school version sucked. Luckily my stuff was intact. But it turns out the first time around, our director got trim-crazy and took out about half of the material. There are only a few things that are cut from the high school version; the main changes are cut verses and what not. Really, it's not that big of a deal, and I favor this version because it's about two and a half hours, which I think is the general attention span of most theatre-goers anyways. I think Les Mis's biggest fault was that it was just too long, and really, certain numbers don't need to be that long i.e. there's a whole opening to Master of the House that's not in any of the CDs except for the CSR, and I don't find it particularly necessary.

I think the best thing to compare this to is the 10th Anniversary Cast. There's a few verses that are missing, but there's also a lot of transition material that's remained in this version, as opposed to the 10th Anniversary, which is more of a concert version.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cents (especially as I'm preparing to Musically Direct a production of this version of Les Miz). The score is not lowered two full steps (as broadwayboy430 said). I have the score for the schools version and the original version sitting next to me and the only difference in keys is that 'Who Am I' is a tone lower.
The cuts are mainly just a verse here and there (like the second verse of Castle on A Cloud) and a lot of the recitative is gone, as is lots of the transitional music.
All these cuts take at least half an hour off the show - which is not necessarily a bad thing! It still leaves the whole dramatic arc of the peice intact.
But of course there are going to be purists who will hate these cuts - and they are totally allowed to voice their opinions. :)

PB ENT made a great point - Musical Theatre is a great experience for kids and Les Miz lets them flex their dramatic muscles and have a good sing, and the cuts in Les Miz allow them to do this while reminding us that developing voices need to be taken care of and helping us with this issue!

Updated On: 6/6/06 at 08:12 AM