'Boating'-Bound Rubin-Vega Leaves Les Miz, 2/18-4/11

Due to her previously announced casting in the upcoming LAByrinth Theater Company production of Bob Glaudini's Jack Goes Boating, Tony Award-nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega will take a leave of absence from Les Miserables.

Rubin-Vega, who plays the doomed Fantine in the musical, will be out of Les Miz from February 18th through April 11th, 2007.  Jack Goes Boating, directed by Peter Dubois and co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, among others, will begin in March (although specific dates have not yet been announced).

Les Miserables opened at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 W. 44th St.) on November 9th.  It also stars Alexander Gemignani (Sweeney Todd, Assassins) as noble on-the-run convict Jean Valjean, Norm Lewis (Chicago, The Wild Party, Side Show) as his persistent adversary Javert, with Tony Award-winner Gary Beach (La Cage aux Folles, The Producers) as Thenardier, Celia Keenan-Bolger (Spelling Bee) as Eponine, Jenny Galloway as Madame Thenardier, Aaron Lazar (The Light in the Piazza) as Enjolras, Adam Jacobs as Marius, and Ali Ewoldt as Cosette.

With music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, with original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel and additional material by James Fenton, Les Miserables is based on the sprawling novel by Victor Hugo.  Directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird, Les Miserables originally ran on Broadway from 1987 through 2003.