Quincy High School Presents Les Miserables
I talked to my dad on the phone this weekend, and he informed me that my high school is going to put on a production of Les Miserables this summer. I almost have no words. Almost.
The truth is, I can't wait to hear the reaction to this show, which features gyrating prostitutes and half a dozen references to erections, from a town that picketed the opening weekend of Showgirls. 16-year-olds humping other 16-year-olds on stage? Fabulous.
Of course, this will be cut out. Fantine will probably sell her hair and then die in bed. But it's her prostitution that leads to Jean Valjean lifting the cart and eventually revealing his identity, so, really, I can't wait to hear how QHS rewrites this plot. They'll probably work in tap dancing.
I went to my share of high school musicals when I was younger, and what is usually the most painful part is that there are only two or three good singers in any given production. Les Miserables demands about a dozen of them. And two of them need to be under the age of ten. Even the touring companies seem to have trouble finding exceptional children. I don't suspect that there are any of immense talent just sitting around in Quincy, Illinois.
Can you tell that I'm annoyed by this? What you probably don't know about me is that I was in love with Les Mis from the time that I was 11 until I was maybe 15. I escaped into the melodramatic and frequently fanciful world of Broadway show tunes when I was a teenager, because I was depressed and unhappy in my own life. I had Stephen Sondheim to make me feel poignant, Claude-Michel Schonberg to make me feel bigger than I was, Kander & Ebb to make me feel clever, and Andrew Lloyd Webber to underscore it all with something soaring and significant.
But so much of my unhappiness stemmed from my life at school, which was the totality of my life when I was 12 and 13. And so seeing Les Miserables joined together with the establishment that drove me to listen to such desperate and pathetic anthems to rid myself of angst is like putting together two puzzle pieces that simply do not fit. It will be a travesty, a tragedy, a disaster, and a wonderful spectacle. I wish I could see it for myself.
The truth is, I can't wait to hear the reaction to this show, which features gyrating prostitutes and half a dozen references to erections, from a town that picketed the opening weekend of Showgirls. 16-year-olds humping other 16-year-olds on stage? Fabulous.
Of course, this will be cut out. Fantine will probably sell her hair and then die in bed. But it's her prostitution that leads to Jean Valjean lifting the cart and eventually revealing his identity, so, really, I can't wait to hear how QHS rewrites this plot. They'll probably work in tap dancing.
I went to my share of high school musicals when I was younger, and what is usually the most painful part is that there are only two or three good singers in any given production. Les Miserables demands about a dozen of them. And two of them need to be under the age of ten. Even the touring companies seem to have trouble finding exceptional children. I don't suspect that there are any of immense talent just sitting around in Quincy, Illinois.
Can you tell that I'm annoyed by this? What you probably don't know about me is that I was in love with Les Mis from the time that I was 11 until I was maybe 15. I escaped into the melodramatic and frequently fanciful world of Broadway show tunes when I was a teenager, because I was depressed and unhappy in my own life. I had Stephen Sondheim to make me feel poignant, Claude-Michel Schonberg to make me feel bigger than I was, Kander & Ebb to make me feel clever, and Andrew Lloyd Webber to underscore it all with something soaring and significant.
But so much of my unhappiness stemmed from my life at school, which was the totality of my life when I was 12 and 13. And so seeing Les Miserables joined together with the establishment that drove me to listen to such desperate and pathetic anthems to rid myself of angst is like putting together two puzzle pieces that simply do not fit. It will be a travesty, a tragedy, a disaster, and a wonderful spectacle. I wish I could see it for myself.