Boublil & Schonberg to Chat MISS SAIGON Revival on THEATER TALK This Week

This week, THEATER TALK welcomes Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, creators of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon.

The latter show is currently being revived on Broadway, 26 years after the NYC premiere in 1991. Boublil wrote the book and lyrics (the English lyrics had an assist from Richard Maltby, Jr. and have updates from Michael Mahler) and Schönberg is credited with the concept, book and music.

The charming and enormously successful pair tell co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins how they met as pop songwriters in France, each energized by seeing West Side Story and wanting to create musical theater in their homeland where there was no such tradition. Their first project was a two-record concept album, which became a hit rock opera in Paris, La Revolution Francaise. "Now," remarks Boublil, "every songwriter in France is writing a musical."

Schönberg saw a photo in a French magazine of a Vietnamese woman giving up her daughter at an airport to send the girl to the USA, where the mother hoped the child's ex-GI father would give her a better life. He realized that the Vietnam War could serve as a setting for a re-telling of the classic Puccini opera, Madame Butterfly, and the idea for Miss Saigon was born.

The original New York production's casting controversies (Whites in Asian roles, most notably British actor Jonathan Pryce in the pivotal role of The Engineer) caused producer Cameron Mackintosh to temporarily cancel the Broadway run and return the show's $33 million advance. Ultimately, Miss Saigon did open in NYC starring Pryce, who even won a Tony Award for his performance. However, Asian American actors were energized by the protests and, overall, the consciousness of producers was raised in casting Asian roles. Now, The Engineer is portrayed by Manila-born American, actor Jon Jon Briones, who travelled from his small village in the Philippines to land a place in the chorus of the original 1989 London production. Since then he has performed in Miss Saigon around the world, was cast as The Engineer in the 2014 West End revival, and now is recreating that role in the production's transfer to Broadway.

The Miss Saigon Revival edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York City metropolitan area Friday, March 24 (2017) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 1:30 AM (early Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 3/26 at 11:30 AM; it re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 3/25 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 3/26 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 3/27 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 3/27 at 5:30 PM and on NYCLife on Thursday 3/30 at 11 PM.

THEATER TALK is jointly produced by the not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The program is taped in the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV in Manhattan, and is distributed to 100+ participating public television stations nationwide. THEATER TALK is made possible in part by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The CUNY TV Foundation, and The Friends of THEATER TALK.

*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast in the NYC metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Spectrum & Optimum/Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes.

Pictured: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg on THEATER TALK. Image courtesy of Theater Talk Productions Inc. & CUNY TV.