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Mark DuMez

For the Chemainus Theatre Festival, an organization dedicated to exploring and nourishing truth, hope, redemption, love and the human spirit, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is an exciting undertaking. The core of the tale goes straight to the heart. To tell the expansive story, we’ve brought in our largest team, extended technical rehearsals and pre-production planning and added other resources to the show. And yet, in this intimate theatre, we get to enjoy this sweeping epic up close and personal – in compelling closeness. It’s been a thrill.

In Hugo’s world, we are faced with opportunities to witness the embrace of another person or dismissal of them, characters who seek only their own survival and those who engage in acts of service. Everyone in this story has desperate needs – seeking justice, finding safety, reconciling their past and choosing to love as they would want to be loved. And yet, the most powerful elements of the story turn on acts of mercy, love and forgiveness. The sweeping arcs of these characters reflect to us our own realities and ask how will we respond when faced with our own sets of difficult choices? How then shall we live? Welcome to our summer musical – thank you for joining us!

Alain Boublil

Alain Boublil’s first musical, La Revolution Française in 1973, marked his transition from songwriting to musical theatre and the start of his collaboration with Claude-Michel Schöenberg with the hit album that became the first ever staged French musical. His idea of writing a musical version of Les Misérables brought them together again in 1978. The acclaimed show was written over a two-year period and recorded as an album before its opening at the Palais de Sports in Paris in September 1980. In 1983 Mr. Boublil met Cameron Mackintosh which led to his first London production Abbacadabra (a musical fairy-tale set to ABBA music) and to working with Claude-Michel and directors and writers on the English language adaptation of Les Misérables. The show has
subsequently opened in 19 countries and 14 languages.

Among the many awards Mr. Boublil has received were two Tony Awards in 1987 for Best Score and Best Book for the NY production and a 1988 Grammy for the Best Original Broadway Cast Recording which he co-produced with Claude-Michel Schöenberg. Miss Saigon opened on
September 20, 1989 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London and on April 11, 1991 in NY. The show has also played in Tokyo and Toronto with future production scheduled for Sydney, Australia and Stuttgart, Germany. Mr. Boublil will maintain a close association with all the international productions of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon while working with Claude-Michel on the screenplays for motion picture versions of both musicals.

Claude-Michel Schönberg

Claude-Michel Schönberg is a successful record producer and songwriter who began his collaboration with Alain Boublil in 1973, writing the very first French musical, La Revolution Française. Mr. Schönberg played the role of Louis XVI in that production and also co-produced the double-gold record album of the show. In 1974, he recorded an album, singing his own compositions and lyrics, which included the number one hit single Le Premier Pas. In 1980, after two years’ work on the score, Mr. Schönberg and Mr. Boublil’s musical Les Misérables opened in Paris, where it was seen by more than 1.5 million people.

In 1983, Mr. Schönberg produced an opera album in Paris with Julia Migenes Johnson and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. Following work on the London production of Les Misérables (the 3rd longest running musical in British theatre history), Mr. Schönberg co-produced the double-platinum London cast album and became involved in casting all the major overseas productions of the show, including the American, Japanese and Australian companies. He won two coveted Tony Awards, for Best Score and Book, for the Broadway production of Les Misérables and a Grammy Award for the Best Original Cast Recording, which he co-produced with Alain Boublil.

He also worked closely on the symphonic recording of the show. His score for Miss Saigon, again written in collaboration with Alain Boublil, is now repeating the international success story of Les Misérables. Produced by Cameron Mackintosh and again bringing together many members of the creative team behind Les Misérables, Miss Saigon opened with huge success at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London in September 1989, in NY in April 1991, in Tokyo in May 1992 and in Chicago (the first national U.S. tour) in November 1992. Future productions will open in Sydney, Australia and Stuttgart, Germany. Now Claude-Michel is back at the keyboards, composing their next musical, Martin Guerre, while keeping close eye on the development of the screenplays for Les Misérables and Miss Saigon.

Herbert Kretzmer

Herbert Kretzmer, born in South Africa, came to London in 1954, and has since pursued twin careers as a newspaperman and songwriter. He was a feature writer at the Daily Sketch and a profile writer at the Sunday Dispatch. He joined the Daily Express in 1960 and later became its drama critic, a post he held for 18 years. Since 1979 he has been writing TV criticism for the Daily Mail and has won, in this capacity, two national press awards. As a lyric writer he wrote weekly songs for BBC-TV’s That Was The Week That Was.

He won an Ivor Novello Award for the Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren comedy song Goodness Gracious Me. Other award-winning lyrics include two written for Charles Aznavour: Yesterday When I Was Young and the chart-topping She. Mr. Kretzmer wrote book and lyrics for the West End’s Our Man Crichton, which starred Kenneth More and Millicent Martin, and lyrics for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane’s The Four Musketeers. He also supplied lyrics for the Anthony Newly film Can Heironymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? Tony Award, 1987, Best Score, Les Misérables.

MTI

Music Theatre International (MTI) is one of the world’s leading theatrical licensing agencies, granting schools as well as amateur and professional theatres from around the world the rights to perform the largest selection of great musicals from Broadway and beyond. MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these shows to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 60,000 theatrical organizations in the US and in over 60 countries worldwide.

Colleen Winton, Director of Waiting for the Parade talks to us about the show

WWII resonates for us all; our lives echo with the experience of generations. This iconic photo, Wait for Me, Daddy, of The British Columbia regiment marching down Eighth Street in New Westminster was taken on October 1, 1940, a short distance from my family home. My mother and grandmother looked on. Featured in LIFE Magazine and blazed around the world, it became the most published Canadian image of the war.

I grew up with it. What strikes me is not just little “Whitey” Bernard, desperate to grasp his Daddy’s hand in that column of men, but the column of women that follow alongside, heroes all, hanging on until that last moment, the moment that separates front line from home front. Their war is just beginning as well. This play echoes with my memories of years ago at Showcase Festival and these five amazing women whose performances resonate more deeply now. I share it with you in the hope that it honours the heroic women and men in your family.

About Colleen

Colleen returns to Chemainus after playing Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, Aunt Penniman in The Heiress, choreographer for Pirates of Penzance and Little Women. Other directing credits: Queen Lear (Western Gold), Merry Wives of Windsor (Graffiti Theatre), Taming of the Shrew (Showcase Festival), Little Shop of Horrors (TUTS). She is grateful to Jeremy, Mark, the Showcase Festival, her menfolk and all the bold women who surround this lovely play.