Do You Read the Thursday Posts, Posting the Tales of Broadway Yore?

 

Courtesy Playbill.

This week's Notable Opening Night is March 12, 1987, when Les Misérables opened at the Broadway.

Directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird went "gloriously show biz" with Les Miz, Frank Rich declared in the New York Times. Nunn and Caird's own directing style honed at the Royal Shakespeare Company was wed to what Jerome Robbins achieved in West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof, resulting in a "gripping pop opera" boasting "conviction, inspiration and taste," showcasing "electrifying showmanship."

I suppose if I'd have to choose one of the post-Evita British super-musicals, it would be Les Misérables. The score by Claude-Michel Schönberg, with lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, is fun to sing along with, even if most characters have truly dire fates. Maybe that's why the songs are easy to parody.

Courtesy YouTube.

Arriving on Broadway nearly a year-and-a-half after its successful opening in London -- it's still playing in the West End, where it's second to only The Mousetrap for long runs -- Les Miz was the show of 1986-87.

"As the most exciting musical drama to hit Broadway in some years, as a visually and musically stirring spectacle, as a stellar instance of highly refined staging skill, Les Misérables will be the hit it deserves to be. It’s a shade too calculated and self-conscious to rank at the very top, but the insistent tugging at the heartstrings will not hurt its popularity with a public that wants the theater to provide a unique experience, which this show emphatically does."

-- Richard Hummler, Variety

Courtesy YouTube.

Courtesy YouTube.

Don't you kind of want to hear the whole thing? Courtesy YouTube.

Not one, but three British imports were vying for Best Musical in 1987. Les Miz (12 nominations, eight wins) faced Me and My Girl (13 nominations, three wins) and Starlight Express (seven nominations, one win), plus the token American show, the already-closed Rags (five nominations, no wins). In addition to Best Musical, honors went to Les Miz's book, score, direction, scenery and its lighting, and performances by Michael Maguire as Enjolras and Frances Ruffelle as Éponine. The also-rans were Terrence Mann and Colm Wilkinson as Inspector Javert and Jean Valjean (both competed as lead actors, possibly cancelling out the other), Judy Kuhn as Cosette (then again, she and Ruffelle both competed as featured actresses, so maybe the voters just really liked Robert Lindsay in Me and My Girl), and the costume design.

Side note: the summer of 1987 was one exciting time for John Caird. On June 7, Les Misérables is the big winner at the 41st Tony Awards. On July 8, his then-wife gives birth to their third and last child. Almost immediately after, Caird and Ruffelle conceive their first child. The director and actress eventually wed, but it wasn't for long.

Courtesy YouTube.

After three-and-a-half years at the Broadway, Les Misérables moved out for the sake of Schönberg and Boublil's Miss Saigon. Les Miz transferred over to the Imperial, where it stayed for another 12-and-a-half years. About halfway during that time -- October 1996, to be specific -- the "Les Miz Massacre" happened.

This would have aired not long after the casting shakeup. Courtesy YouTube.

Les Misérables' original Broadway run eventually concluded, on May 18, 2003. At that time, it was the second longest-running Broadway show, behind Cats and ahead of The Phantom of the Opera, which had pulled ahead of A Chorus Line on the all-timers list. As of March 2026, Phantom is closed but still ranks No. 1 (although Chicago, The Lion King, Wicked, or all of the above may eventually exceed its run). After May 2003, Les Miz came back to Broadway from 2006-08 (this time at the Broadhurst) and not too long after the belated 2012 movie adaptation, a 2014-16 run once again at the Imperial. You just can't seem to keep the show down.

Courtesy YouTube.

Other notable openings include:

An Ideal Husband, which opened in 1895 at the original, now-demolished Lyceum. This was the American premiere of Oscar Wilde's play about blackmail that can end one marriage and prevent another.

Priorities of 1942, which opened in 1942 at what is now the Richard Rodgers. Clifford C. Fischer produced this revue, which was followed by the short-lived New Priorities of 1943, which never even got to be performed in that year.

The Sound of Music, which was revived in 1998 at what is now the Al Hirschfeld. While it only scored one Tony nomination, which it lost (Best Revival of a Musical), this production ran more than a year and has a place in the history books for Laura Benanti's Broadway debut. She understudied Rebecca Luker as Maria, and eventually played the role opposite Richard Chamberlain as Captain von Trapp.

Courtesy YouTube.

Come From Away, which opened in 2017 at the Gerald Schoenfeld. Seven Tony nominations and one win, for Christopher Ashley's direction, went to this musical from the husband and wife team of Irene Sankoff and David Hein. It's the story of Gander, Newfoundland, becoming a temporary shelter for approximately 7,000 airline passengers when the skies were closed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The nominees included Jenn Colella, whose roles included Beverley Bass, American Airlines' first female captain.

Courtesy YouTube.

Next week, the show that kept The Sound of Music from winning that 1998 Best Revival Tony.