Happy Times With Les MisÉrables

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Riverside Artistic Director & CEO Allen Cornell. “You start to debate, why didn’t they include this or that in the musical,” he says. “But it is a long show and at some point you have to just trust the form you are working in.”

“And the rights to produce the musical Les Misérables this season go to … Riverside Theatre!”

The announcement made earlier this year solidified the Riverside’s national reputation as a first-rate producer of major musicals. Riverside is only one of 10 theatres in the country, and the only theatre in Florida, licensed to stage this much-loved musical for the 2012/2013 season. Under the direction of Allen Cornell, the theatre’s Artistic Director and CEO, it will run from February 21 through March 10.

After signing for the rights to the musical, Cornell picked up a copy of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, upon which it is based. What he found in the 1,400-page novel was a stunning surprise. “I knew it would be important to read the book, and my motivation was simply to read it for research,” he says. “But once I started, it became a complete and total inspiration, as well as a fantastic read. I thought, why haven’t I read this before?”

Read the entire article in the December 2012 issue

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