My school recently put on a production of Les Miserables School Edition. From the moment our director/drama teacher took on the project, there were people in the community who said we couldn't, that there was no way we could pull it off. Auditions were held in the end of June, parts were assigned and scripts were handed out. In September, the second week of school, practices began. Every day after school, the cast of 65 (or as many of them as could make it) met in the school's theater to practice singing and work with the blocking. Before long a former teacher and and a skilled student went to work creating set piece after set piece. With the help of various cast members, they created the improbable- a lightweight, spinning barricade. So light that, by the time the show came and it was decorated and covered in actors, all it took was 3 men to push that thing at any given time.
During the end of November, practices moved to the college and became mandatory. Practices were no longer right after school. They started at 6:00 pm and ran about 4 hours each. Costumes were complete, props were all there, and not everything went according to plan. Boots got stuck on actors' feet, set peices didn't come in at the right time, and lights needed to be adjusted. But just before you'd about given up and decided that it just wasn't worth it, we were given a final dress rehersal, on last chance to get it perfect. It went perfectly, just as it should after all that time spent on it, no one missed a note, every prop and set piece made it on stage, and it was beautiful... until the power went out. Never say MacBeth in a theater.
Opening night was perfect, the audience laughed at the right times, cried at the right times, and was simply blown away. The paper loved us, and called us 'Les Marvelous Miserables'. We were given 6 stars out of 5 on the radio. It was amazing.The show was performed 5 more times, and in each one, the audience recieved an amazing performance. The director of 'West Side Story' was blown away. No one could say we hadn't succeeded. By the middle of the run, people stopped asking how we thought we could pull it off. They started asking a new question. Closing night brought tears. It was an amazing experience that couldn't be beat. But not all the tears were for the end of the show.
The cast party sent an unexpected twist in the plot. The cast's beloved director and teacher was done. Next semester is it. For now anyways, he's done. That new question has seemingly found it's answer. 'How are you going to top this?' the community started to ask. Well it looks like, simply, he's not. You have to hit the top sometime, and what goes up must come down. In a way, we're avoiding that downhill slope, but the future is so blurry, you can't see how close that drop is until you hit it. The end of Les Miserables brought the end of a golden age of theater at my high school. But in a way it was worth it. To touch so many people. Because that's what it's really about. Les Miserables isn't like 'Little Shop of Horrors' or 'Jack and the Beanstock'. It's about people, and about the truth. It's magical.
-MEJ
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