Les Misérables (theatre)/Trivia

• All-Star Cast: The entire point of the 10th Anniversary Concert, which didn't have a principal cast member among them that wasn't a Broadway and/or West End luminary, including Colm Wilkinson, Philip Quast, Michael Ball, Lea Salonga, Ruthie Henshall, Michael Maguire, and Judy Kuhn.
  • The 25th Anniversary Concert followed suit; even Nick Jonas, more famous as a pop singer, had at one point played Gavroche on Broadway.
• Colbert Bump:
  • "I Dreamed a Dream" received major publicity after Susan Boyle's famous performance on Britain's Got Talent.
  • "On My Own" and "I Dreamed a Dream" have both been featured on Glee.
• Fan Nickname: The Friends of the ABC are called the "Barricade Boys". Retroactively applied to the novel too.
• Life Imitates Art: French citizens submitted a serious petition to have "Do You Hear The People Sing?", the martial revolutionary song (quoted) that you are most likely to remember from the musical, nominated as a second National Anthem of France, alongside La Marseillaise.
  • "Do You Hear The People Sing?" has also been used in connection with the Occupy Movement.
• Romance on the Set: Actors Jason Forbach and Joseph Spieldenner met while playing Feuilly and Grantaire on the 25th anniversary US tour. Forbach soon took over as Enjolras, and the two played the famously Ho Yay-tastic pair until the tour ended in 2013, and got engaged at the end of that year.
• Star-Making Role: This show made Michael Ball and Frances Ruffelle household names, and turned Rebecca Caine into a darling of the theatre world.
• You Look Familiar: Colm Wilkinson (who originated the role of Valjean) as well as Frances Ruffelle and Samantha Barks (Éponine) will have roles in the upcoming film version. Also holds true for several actors and actresses who've joined more than one production.
  • Colm Wilkinson in particular cued a giant And the Fandom Rejoiced.
  • Similarly, quite a few of the barricade boys in the upcoming film will be played by West End barricade boys - Killian Donnelly (who was a swing and played pretty much all the roles, and then a principal Enjolras), Fra Fee (who understudied Enjolras and Marius), and Alistair Brammer (who was principal Marius for a while), for instance.
    • On the subject of Killian Donnelly: audiences who saw his run as a swing were definitely subjected to a lot of You Look Familiar. He wasn't known as the "super swing" for nothing! During his time as swing, he played just about all the major roles in the show, other than Marius, coming on as emergency cover Valjean twice, covering Javert at least once, and playing Enjolras (even before he became the principal) quite a few times as well! Someone's even put together an edit of him playing all the male roles save Marius in One Day More ...