LES MISERABLES Broadway Revival with Ramin Karimloo, Caissie Levy & Will Swenson Begins Performances Tomorrow

Cameron Mackintosh's acclaimed new production of Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg's Tony Award-winning musical masterpiece LES MISERABLES begins previews on Broadway tomorrow, Saturday, March 1 at the Imperial Theatre. The official opening night for LES MISERABLES is Sunday, March 23.

The cast of the new LES MIZ features Ramin Karimloo (West End and Toronto star of LES MISERABLES, and The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies in London) as Jean Valjean; Will Swenson (Tony Award-nominated star of Broadway's Hair and Priscilla Queen of the Desert) as Javert; Caissie Levy (West End and Broadway star of Ghost and Hair and Elphaba in Broadway's Wicked) as Fantine; Nikki M. James (Tony Award winner for The Book of Mormon) as Eponine; Andy Mientus (who captured the hearts of TV viewers with his portrayal of Kyle Bishop on the NBC series "Smash") as Marius; Samantha Hill (Christine in The Phantom of the Opera) as Cosette; acclaimed Canadian actor Cliff Saunders (The 39 Steps) as Thenardier; Tony Award-nominee Keala Settle (Hands on a Hardbody) as Madame Thenardier and Kyle Scatliffe (the West End production of The Scottsboro Boys) as the revolutionary Enjolras.

The LES MIZ ensemble includes Erin Clemons, Joshua Colley, Emily Cramer, Natalie Charle Ellis, Jason Forbach, Heidi Giberson, Nathaniel Hackmann, Mia Sinclair Jenness, Andrew Kober, Gaten Matarazzo, Chris McCarrell, Melissa Mitchell, Dennis Moench, Adam Monley, Betsy Morgan, Angeli Negron, Melissa O'Neil, Max Quinlan, John Rapson, Terance Reddick, Arbender Robinson, Christianne Tisdale, Mckayla Twiggs and Aaron Walpole. The swings are Cathryn Basile, John Brink, Ben Gunderson, Weston Wells Olson and Rachel Rincoine.

This newly re-imagined LES MISERABLES, which grossed over $160 million in its recent two and a half year American tour, and recently broke box office records, receiving rave reviews and capacity crowds with the Canadian production at the Princess of Wales in Toronto starring Ramin Karimloo.

International productions of the new LES MISERABLES have met with equal success and acclaim in the U.K., France, Spain, Japan and Korea and will open soon in Australia. This new version of LES MISERABLES, which premiered in the U.K. in 2009, inspired filmmakers to make the immensely successful Oscar/Golden Globe/BAFTA-winning movie.

Based on Victor Hugo's classic novel, LES MISERABLES is an epic and uplifting story about the survival of the human spirit. The magnificent score includes the classic songs "I Dreamed a Dream," "On My Own," "Stars," "Bring Him Home," "Do You Hear the People Sing?," "One Day More," "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," "Master Of The House" and many more.

Cameron Mackintosh's production of LES MISERABLES is written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg and is based on the novel by Victor Hugo. It has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, original adaption by Trevor Nunn and John Caird and additional material by James Fenton. The original LES MISERABLES orchestrations are by John Cameron with new orchestrations by Christopher Jahnke, Stephen Metcalfe and Stephen Brooker.

The new production is directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell, with set and image design by Matt Kinley inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, costumes by Andreane Neofitou and Christine Rowland, lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Mick Potter and projections realized by Fifty-Nine Productions. Musical staging is by Michael Ashcroft and Geoffrey Garratt. Musical supervision is by Stephen Brooker and musical direction by James Lowe.

The original production of LES MISERABLES can now only be seen in London where it's currently in its 29th record-breaking year. LES MISERABLES originally premiered at the Barbican Theatre in a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company in October 1985. It transferred to the Palace Theatre in December of that year and then moved to its current home at the Queen's Theatre in April 2004 where it is still playing to standing room only. In October 2006 LES MISERABLES took over the title of World's Longest Running Musical followed by two other Cameron Mackintosh productions, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and Cats.

The original New York production of LES MISERABLES premiered first at the Broadway Theatre on March 12, 1987, later moving to the Imperial on October 17, 1990, where it played until May 18, 2003, for a total Broadway run of 6680 performances.

There have been four U.S. national touring companies of LES MISERABLES that have played more than 200 cities. Broadway audiences welcomed LES MISERABLES back to New York on November 9, 2006 where the show played the Broadhurst Theatre until its final performance on January 6, 2008. LES MISERABLES is the 4th longest-running Broadway production of all time.

Seen by nearly 65 million people worldwide in 42 countries and in 22 languages, LES MISERABLES is undisputedly one of the world's most popular musicals ever written, with new productions continually opening around the globe, with seven more currently scheduled. The worldwide gross for LES MISERABLES is $2.5 billion. There have been 47 cast recordings of LES MISERABLES, including the multi-platinum London cast recording, the Grammy Award-winning Broadway cast and complete symphonic albums and live recording of the New 25th Anniversary Production and the motion picture

soundtrack which sold close to 2 million copies and topped the Billboard and iTunes charts. The DVD's of the 10th Anniversary at the Royal Albert Hall and the 25th Anniversary at The O2 have sold millions of copies worldwide.

There are over 3,000 productions of the LES MISERABLES School's Edition scheduled or being performed by over 150,000 school children in the UK, US and Australia, making it the most successful musical ever produced in schools.

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the legendary musical LES MISERABLES made theatrical history with an international first: three different productions in London at the same time. The Original Production at the Queen's Theatre, the acclaimed New 25th Anniversary Production at the Barbican (where the show originally premiered) and a celebratory concert at The O2 Arena. The O2 Concert was presented in over 500 cinemas throughout the United States on November 17, 2010 and is now available on Blu-ray DVD through Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

The 2012 Universal film version of LES MISERABLES co-produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Working Title Films, and directed by Tom Hooper, is one of the most successful musical films ever, grossing more than $450 million. The film received the Golden Globe Award as Best Picture (Musical/Comedy) and received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won three Academy Awards. The film's soundtrack debuted at #1 on Billboard's Album chart and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.

The sumptuous definitive new book, LES MISERABLES - From Stage to Screen from Applause Books tells the story so far of the World's Longest Running Musical in words, pictures and rare facsimile memorabilia and is written by Benedict Nightingale and Martyn Palmer, with a foreword by Cameron Mackintosh.