Double Les Miz Double Valjean

Episode 156: Double Les Miz Double Valjean Host Lindsay Price and Theatrefolk co-owner Craig Mason had a unique theatrical experience. They saw Les Miserables twice in three days. The first show had the closing night performance of Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean and the second saw Alfie Boe in his opening night performance. Two actors. Two Valjean’s. How did each performer interpret the role? In a long running piece like Les Miserables  is there room for actor interpretation? What were the similarities and the differences? Tune in to find out! Show Notes Les Miserables Ramin Karimloo Alfie Boe Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. Woohoo! I had to get excited there! I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 156. You can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at theatrefolk.com/episode156. Today, today is a Lindsay and Craig talk – Lindsay and Craig, Lindsay and Craig. That’s Lindsay Price – me – and Craig Mason – co-owner of Theatrefolk and my co-cohort – co-cohort? Is that a word? Cohort! Cohort in crime. We had a unique theatrical experience a while back. We saw the same show twice, a couple of days after each other. We saw Les Miz with two different actors in the lead role – two different Jean Valjeans. One on his closing night and one on his opening night. So, what were the similarities? What were the differences? Did we like one more than the other? Is there room for actor interpretation in a long-running show like Les Miz? So many questions! I bet we have answers! I hope we have answers! We better have something, you know – otherwise, it’d be a pretty short podcast. So, let’s find out. LINDSAY: All right, let me set the scene. This is Lindsay. Hello everybody. I am also here with Craig Mason. CRAIG: Hello everybody. LINDSAY: Hello everybody. It is quarter to 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night and we are in New York City. We have just come back to the hotel after seeing Les Miz – Les Misérables – for the second time in two days. Now, there is a very specific reason why we have seen them twice and I’m going to turn this over to Craig. Craig, why did we decide to come to New York specifically to see Les Miz basically two times in a row? We saw it Sunday afternoon and then we saw it Tuesday night. CRAIG: A few months ago, I was looking at the theatre area in Reddit and there was a mention that Alfie Boe was coming in to play Jean Valjean in Les Miz. One of the comments on it was Ramin Karimloo was the existing Jean Valjean and he was leaving the show and Alfie Boe was coming in and one of the comments on the post was, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to go see closing night for Ramin Karimloo and then come back two days later to see Alfie Boe do it?” LINDSAY: And you said, “Hey, Lindsay!” CRAIG: This little lightbulb went over my head and I thought, “Wow! That would be kind of cool to see!” And so, we checked our calendar. The trip is very tight against some other plans we have but we were able to squeeze it all in and here we are. LINDSAY: Yeah, and we were like, “Well, you know, we won’t be able to do this because the tickets will be extraordinary.” No, the tickets were pretty much normal. Okay, is the time going to fit? Yeah,