Here’s a Christmas present 3 months late.
Check your e-mail for the password 🙂
All posts by mrmeredith
Easter Fun
I ran across a 10-page photo gallery of Les Mis acted out with Peeps. Here are some highlights:
“There is a basket on a cloud…”
“It is the music of a confection who will not be microwaved again!”
” Here upon these eggs we will build our Easter-cade”
FYI the captions are the first things that popped into my head. I encourage you to comment if you can think of something funnier (which shouldn’t be hard).
Some stuff
OK it’s been way way way too long since I updated this page, so here are some things for you to check out:
First, let’s compare some versions of The Beggars-Javert’s Intervention. The first clip is from a HS production and you’ll notice a few interesting differences between our version and theirs:
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Notice how the poor and hungry of Paris seem to be portrayed by potatoes. Fortunately these destitute spuds can put an ‘N’ at the end of ‘look down’, so their appearance can be forgiven. While I won’t interject my personal opinions of these students’ voices, you can draw your own conclusions and can hopefully form some ideas (positive and negative) to augment your own performance during this scene. Speaking of augmenting performances let’s look at a professional version of this scene.
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I doubt this video will be up for long but it showcases a mind-blowing set with a fantastic chorus. I personally enjoy the intensity each character (big and small) brings to this scene. There are some parts in this version that were cut from the School Edition, but overall the voices and acting are at an inspirational level. Feel free to search YouTube for more scenes like Master of the House, At the End of the Day, and so on. You can get a lot of great ideas for things to try (and not to try).
On to some links!
- First you have to check out this link to the MTI Website where our upcoming production of Les Miserables is listed.
- Here’s a Google Maps link to Jardins du Luxembourg (where Cosette walks and Marius first see her).
- This is Pont Notre Dame (the bridge where Javert commits suicide).
- Rue Plumet (Now called Rue Oudinot; Where Valjean and Cosette lived in Paris).
- Jean Valjean Park and Inn in Montfermeil (home to the Thernardier’s Inn and ‘the wood’ that scares little Cosette).
I’ll hopefully be able to upload some clips of our rehearsals so you can critique your own performances and continue to improve as we rapidly approach opening weekend. Happy Easter!
Guess Who
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Here’s a little quiz to celebrate the close of our third week of rehearsal. The actor playing Marius in this clip is a well known celebrity. Although his hair in this clip is terrible, it’s pretty similar to his hairstyle when he first became famous… any ideas? First one to guess correctly gets a gummy chili dog on Monday.
PS No fair following the link and cheating
A Little Fall of…
We’re about to start another week of rehearsals I’ve decided to share some more character inspirations. First of all, I saw the Cohoes Music Hall version of Les Miserables this past Friday. It was very very well done and the cast was made up of some outstanding students. If you were fortunate enough to catch this show, you were hopefully energized and given some ideas on developing your own character(s). If you missed the show, I’m hoping to track down a video of a different HS production to share with everyone.
After seeing the Cohoes show, I feel more inspired and fired up about digging into our version of Les Miserables at Greenville. Just a quick reminder that we’re having a leads rehearsal until 5:00 Monday in the HS Auditorium. Be prepared to sing through each of your individual assignments, and also to plow through ‘One Day More’. In my show research I recently ran across something rather unbelievable: A Japanese fighting game based on Les Mis. I know it seems too good to be true but, here’s a link to a site about it. The playable characters are Valjean, Javert, Marius, Eponine, Enjolras, the Thernardiers, a French Police officer, Robo-Jean (yes… Robo-Jean), a creepy guy called Judgement and a weird little bunny with a cup of coffee. I tested this game out today and it was quite enjoyable. Enjolras has a cheap move where he drops a barricade on you out of the sky and apparently French police can shoot fireballs… I had no idea.
Eponine unleashes ‘a little fall of PAIN’ on Enjolras… if you have an internet connection that can handle a 150+ megabyte download, then you can click here to download the game. The install program is in Japanese. so unless you’re computer savvy, I wouldn’t recommend the installation. Anyway, tomorrow’s forecast is calling for some snow. If the unthinkable happens, I’ll send out an e-mail with an updated rehearsal schedule. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!