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[0:00] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff & Richie, the podcast where we explore the latest shows we see, sharing our insights and opinions on the performances, storylines, and everything in between. In today's episode, we're discussing Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables. Whether you cannot catch the show in person or want to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you. And as always, we want to inform you that this episode will contain spoilers. So if you're ready to dive into this production, stick around with us. I'm Jeff.

[0:25] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie, and we're thrilled to be your hosts for today's episode. But before we start the conversation about Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables, here are a few words from our advertisers. Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff & Richie. Today, we're discussing Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables. Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables brings Victor Hugo's powerful story of redemption, justice, love, and revolution to the stage. Set against the political unrest of 19th-century France, the musical follows Jean Valjean as he seeks a new life after years of imprisonment, while the relentless Inspector Javert pursues him at every turn. With unforgettable songs and a sweeping story that moves from personal sacrifice to collective uprising, Les Misérables asks what it means to show mercy, fight for a better future, and hold onto hope in the face of impossible odds.

[1:13] Jeff Malone: So as we always do, let's get into our bold statement about Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables. You want to go first?

[1:18] Richie Grasso: Yes, my bold statement on Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables is, can we do more musical theater outside? That's all I want, because it's glorious and gorgeous, and this production is moving me to tears. And I just love the immersion of us in nature, telling stories like this right outside of the New York City area. Please do more of this, please. And everyone needs to go see this, because it's only running for a few more weeks. And go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. It was amazing.

[1:46] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think seeing Les Mis at Hudson Valley Shakespeare was not only glorious, but may be my favorite way to see this show, which is in an outdoor setting. Let's dive in. So I don't know, we have to talk too much about the plot here. We're certainly going to talk concept.

[2:01] Richie Grasso: Yeah. And I think we can also talk about plot here as it relates to today.

[2:07] Jeff Malone: Sure. Hopefully most of you know Les Mis. This musical has run a very long time. It's based on a very famous Victor Hugo novel. It's done all over the world. It's a very, very long-running show, all over the world, many languages, and has been on Broadway multiple times. I've seen it on Broadway twice. We saw it together on Broadway in the last revival.

[2:26] Richie Grasso: Concert version. It was just a huge concert tour that came to Radio City. And now we're at Hudson Valley Shakespeare seeing this outdoor version. A few years back, we were at Hudson Valley Shakespeare seeing Into the Woods.

[2:36] Jeff Malone: Which was lovely. I think it was one of the first times, or maybe the first time they did a musical outside. And for those of you who don't know, Hudson Valley Shakespeare is located about an hour north of New York City. And we're going to talk a little bit later about that specific site and what's come with this brand new theater and what have you. But they always do Shakespeare, of course. And then there's this other show. And sometimes it's a play in the Shakespearean realm and sometimes not. And I think they've been trying out musical theater once in a while. And obviously musicals are more expensive. But this seemed to make complete sense to put in this space. For those of you who don't know, it's a thrust stage, about 500 seats.

And it's under a big theater, open-air roof. And then you look out onto the Hudson River. And so you see the mountains, the valleys, the river, and the trees, and the big, big, big lawn that goes out. And a lot of the setting takes place out there. We'll talk about the staging in a little bit. But it's just, I will say as Theater Mania, I believe the reviewer said, with scenic design by God. And I was like, wow, yeah, this is just the rolling, beautiful hills of the Hudson Valley as the background.

[3:41] Richie Grasso: So when you talk about Les Mis being very site-specific, obviously it's set in Paris and it's very industrial. So I had thought, oh, well, this is very nature, like an Into the Woods. It's all in the woods. So it's nature. But Les Mis is set in buildings and sewers and bridges and in Paris. So how do we convey that? Well, we didn't have built scenery like that. It was instead using the grounds and then pieces to tell the story. The concept of just having a smaller ensemble, multiple people playing multiple roles in the Shakespearean style, and then having just furniture come on and off, some ladders and things, that was really, really brilliant of a directorial vision, of a concept of bringing this, usually what's an epic, epic, huge musical, still felt huge in this space. That was what I think was most mesmerizing to me.

[4:32] Jeff Malone: Yeah, because it easily could not have felt very big. And I think with this, looking and taking this and putting the concept of it being outdoors and you kind of having that, because a lot of it really does take place outdoors. And it gives you that whole feeling of like, oh, I'm kind of there and I get it. But it also, it felt like the perfect bridge to me between like the concert-style versions that tour around the world. And we just had one here in Radio City. We didn't get the chance to see it, but it's like the bridge between that and the full fleshed out Broadway-style productions that we get of Les Mis. And with this, it really was able for myself to kind of bring me into what's actually being sung through these lyrics.

Because sometimes you're so taken by everything that's happening on the stage that now you actually get to really listen to what's happening in the text of these lyrics. And that to me was like a big standout for what happened here at Hudson Valley Shakespeare.

[5:34] Richie Grasso: Totally. And I think what's also nice is you're in a three-quarter thrust stage. It's an intimate audience and you're getting to really connect with these characters and you're getting to watch what they're saying, listen a little more intently. There is a big orchestra, but it's not a 50-piece orchestra. Everything was just brought down, but it still had the epicness of it. And I think this concept of actors entering from all areas, immersing yourself in nature, immersing yourself within the theater, actors immersing themselves, totally makes sense. And then this concept of, for a spoiler alert, we have the character playing Fantine, the actor playing Fantine is also playing Angela, and the actor playing the Bishop is also playing Thénardier.

And there were a few other doublings and whatnot. Those are the big ones. It makes sense because we don't see the Bishop much the rest of the show. We certainly don't see Fantine again until spoiler alert at the very end. And so that was kind of great. And I think that double casting, that is what the Shakespearean style kind of was. And I think they took this and they didn't say, well, let's just ignore that we do Shakespeare and do something completely different. Let's keep it in like, if this was told during Shakespearean times, how would those troops have done it? And this was kind of that same feel, which is a vision. And I think that's brilliant. And we'll talk more about the design and the director's vision in the next segment.

But I think this concept of putting this epic show on this lawn under this big open-air theater outside, rain or shine, because when we were there it was drizzling in the beginning and then the drizzling stopped, right? I think that gives just the ambience of this epic piece of musical theater.

[7:05] Jeff Malone: Yeah. And one thing that kind of stood out for me in this production as a whole, and really helped me with the diving into the text of it, I went more into the creative side and I really was like, hmm, they kind of set Les Mis up for you as an audience member to really decide who you kind of want to invest yourself into. Maybe like one time you see a production, you're like, oh, I'm going to be invested in Fantine this time, or this time for me, it actually was the Thénardiers. And I look at them and I say, they're comedic relief most of the time, but they're really big plot drivers in so many different ways. And I wonder if sometimes if you're going to see this, you're like, hmm, they're kind of overlooked.

But for me, I followed them because I also thought that the actors that were performing both of those roles were outstanding and we'll get to them in the next section. But I learned more from them in this production. Actually, a lot of the roles here, I really learned a lot more from this because I think there was so much removed. And I think that there was this time for you to really say like, oh, I understand what's happening with this one. And I'm following their character journey now throughout this speech, which is like something that I really want to applaud that this production did well.

[8:30] Richie Grasso: Yes. And not to mention like there was this, you know, and this we'll talk about in the design a little bit coming up too, but there was this, like, we start the show with the French flag on the floor. The French flag is then risen and becomes the barricade. We don't need to build this huge barricade. We just use the furniture to give this vision and then use the flag to almost block the river, to block the mountainous, the beauty and say like, well, this section of the musical is not pretty. This is actually a war now and we're going to show this section. But then the holes and the tattering of the flag that then comes down and buries them, the symbolism of just using this big, large flag was pretty impressive too.

And uses that element of saying, okay, well, we're not going to build all this scenery. We're going to use just this one element. So it was a vision after vision after vision that brings this collaborative piece together in this really unique space. It was visionary.

[9:17] Jeff Malone: And one thing I'll say too, like when we were leaving this show, we started talking about some themes that we really picked up on a lot here. And I felt like some things that were a little bit more prominent in this production as well, like actually understanding the June Rebellion of 1832. I think that's a big thing that many people probably confuse themselves over when they see Les Mis. And I think that's a talking point. A lot of people are like, oh, they talk about the French Revolution when they are talking about Les Mis and that's not what this is. This is the June Rebellion of 1832, which was a student rebellion. And then the students lost against the government because they were rebelling. It's interesting to see the young students of this piece telling that story and what Victor Hugo decided to write about long ago too. Really fascinating stuff.

[10:05] Richie Grasso: And not only that too, but another big thing that we picked up a lot on is God playing a big piece into this production. We were noticing so much. I've done this show before. I know the show so well, but I just couldn't help but really hone in on the lyrics more in this production and realize that, yeah, there's references to God and religion. I think maybe my favorite lyric in the whole piece is, to love another person is to see the face of God. And there's that ending with that before, do you hear the people sing? And there's that.

[10:38] Jeff Malone: They turn to God and religion, and maybe the people of that time in the most difficult times had to turn to religion and God, as many people do in the world when they're in the lowest of lows. And there was that uplifting feeling of religion or God to kind of get them through the dark times. And that was fascinating in this. I just honed in on the references to God so much more throughout this.

[11:02] Richie Grasso: And also not so much that it's a religious God. It's who is God to you?

[11:07] Jeff Malone: And the spiritual being of that. Right. I mean, like when we get to the ending here, and he is saying that about God, and then it's Fantine and Eponine there. Is that his God? Are they the ones there welcoming him into wherever they are going? That's up for you to interpret.

[11:25] Jeff Malone: And there's this vision of hope that even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise. The last two words of the whole piece are tomorrow comes, I believe. Yeah. So tomorrow comes. Yeah. And they are hopeful still after all of that three hours that tomorrow comes.

[11:43] Richie Grasso: And there is another day ahead. One day more. Right. There's just all of those references to what religious beings believe, but also what the vision of looking ahead, the future. So that's fascinating. And I felt that in this. And then I also felt this feeling of like, this is the future of theater telling in that way. And we're going to get to that in the next few segments.

[12:04] Jeff Malone: Yes. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll get into the direction, actor performances and design of this piece. Okay. And we're back. So let's kick things off with the creative team here for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Les Misérables.

[12:18] Richie Grasso: Wonderful team of people here. I want to start off with the director, Jen Thompson, who we saw direct Into the Woods. And I believe she was the national tour Annie that we just saw at Madison Square Garden. So she's done some really cool work. I think if Jen Thompson can stay at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival every summer, of course, go do other things, too. But do these visionary pieces and maybe even the Shakespeare and the musical theater. I just think we need to see more of this vision. It's very clear that she knows what she's doing in this space with these design teams. And she's working with people that are dealing with weather and open air and lighting the show at the start of the curtain versus lighting a show at the end of the curtain, where most indoor theaters, you have dark periods.

But this is like a sunset and the sun is still kind of out and you're having to light a show and then you have to light the same show at the end. And you're dealing with vision like that and costumes. What if they get wet outside? What if it's windy? There's so many elements of life that these designers and this director have to take into consideration.

[13:21] Jeff Malone: Oh, totally. Which is really fascinating to me that they were able to work like this in this piece as strong as they did.

[13:28] Richie Grasso: And we had lighting designed by Matt Richards. And I would applaud Jen Thompson and Matt Richards in both of those aspects of, yes, the direction and the lighting. I think it's very easy to look at something like the outdoor theater space and say they have a lawn behind this theater. The stage faces the lawn or butts up against the lawn. So they can use that lawn any way that they want. And I think that there's an opportunity to overuse the lawn and not have the whole impactful moments that we actually get. And I think what Jen does really nice is that she brings the subtle moments in, especially in a production like Les Mis. A few of them you would expect that she's going to use the lawn and she's going to have them come up over the hill and walk out to the stage and great. But there were also times where I was like, oh, that was really smart.

[14:18] Jeff Malone: Well, the few times I think really stood out for me was the children running in after Jean Valjean's moment. It's kind of like before the factory workers come in at the end of the day and the children running through. The use of children in this were fascinating because most of the time you see Gavroche and Eponine and Cosette. But they were immersed in it. They were telling the story of like, this is the future. These are the future people. And we do jump time throughout the piece to see the older Cosette and Eponine. But I love the children running over the hill. I love the marching over the hill. I love them running out of the hill. And I will say, I talk about the moment in the movie that burst me into tears, the moment of the show that always seems to still catch me off guard, even though I know it's coming and I know it's coming, is Fantine's appearance at the end.

And I always want to talk to someone who's never seen Les Mis and look at their reaction or be like, when that moment's about to come, because that breaks me every time. And usually on Broadway or whatever, you don't see Fantine for most of the show. The actor was also Angela, so you saw that actor again. But then as Fantine, as Jean Valjean's dying to see over the hill, now it's dark and there's just this candle way down and she's appearing in her all white and she has her hair again and she's walking, walking, walking and doing this long journey, walk over to him. That was brilliant. And then have the ghost of Eponine as well. Approach, approach, approach, approach. Brilliant and beautiful.

[15:44] Richie Grasso: Beautiful. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I just started crying because I'm like, this is just usually just like Fantine just kind of comes out, you know, like, oh, my gosh, she's back. But to give me like what felt like five whole minutes of a walk, maybe it was only two or three minutes. And to time that with the music that she gets there right at the time. Take my hand where chains will never bind you. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, like I'm just you're right. And it wasn't just you and it wasn't just me. It was like you look around and you can look because you're in the round or three quarter round and you're looking and you're like, OK, there's a feeling the emotion of that. And then just the use of that lawn and the marching over the hill, they kind of don't appear. You don't really see them like they must come all the way around the side and hover and then just appear a great design of that space, too.

[16:29] Jeff Malone: And so, oh, it's just brilliant direction. I think, like I said earlier, the barricade used with the French flag, how the French flag symbolized so much and the battered holes in it that showed the barricade itself. That was really impressive. I think Gavroche and the shadow of him dying behind that lit was beautiful. I mean, I can think of so many moments, the tables and chairs moving that around to tell different spaces. But it didn't feel like I needed projections and telling me the time. Sometimes in the Broadway, it'll say the year, it'll say we're now in this time. I think we get it. Like most people kind of know this show. And so, like, I think the movie helped with that, too. And I think we don't need to be beat over the head with the locales much. Trust your audience, which is exactly what this creative team did. And they trusted us to take us on this journey in this different space.

[17:15] Richie Grasso: Right. And she trusted us so much in a way that she actually used the children in the smartest way. She used them when time was changing. And instead of having to project that up on a screen, she showed us. And I actually think she showed us more than we normally get with the children, because we watched the children observe what was happening. We watched Young Cosette and Eponine while they were with the Tenardiers and how they were interacting with each other and how they then start growing up throughout this piece. That's how you knew that time was changing. And I thought that was done super well.

[17:50] Jeff Malone: And not to mention some of the acting performances here. So we do have, you know, Tony nominee Josh Young as Jean Valjean. Let's just start there. Like the voice. And you know, you're waiting for bring him home. And you know, you're waiting for that soaring last note in the falsetto. And you're just watching people tear because you just. And I felt new meaning in that moment, too, that that's another generational moment. Let him live. Let him write. Bring him home. This is someone we need the youth to cut, you know. And that was just a brilliant generational song, too. All of these people, he just really stood out for me. Other standouts for me were really, really impressive was Haley Dorchus, Fantine and Angelas.

Very, very impressive. Love the Tenardiers, David Beach and Hans Williamson. They all were so strong. We had Denny Lambert as Javert. A wonderful, brilliant performance. I just everyone was so well cast. And I will say we had Ana Paula Garcia as Cosette. Cosette comes in later, right? She has that beautiful song. She has the soprano. I was so impressed with her acting through song. So many times we have acting and then we have singing for her. To me, what really stood out was this acting through the song. I was very impressed with that performance.

[19:17] Richie Grasso: Yeah. I mean, it's funny when you look at a lot of these roles and you kind of say, oh, who do you really like gravitate towards? And it's like I think from vocal standpoints, especially for females who are looking at what roles they want to play. I mean, do you want to be an Eponine or do you want to be a Fantine or do you want to be a Cosette? And I say, like, I think I would want to be an Eponine.

[19:30] Jeff Malone: Well, that's another character that's a big number. She was fantastic, too. Eponine was played by Hailey Rose Ciaramella. Brilliant performance as well. They were all so strong.

[19:50] Richie Grasso: And kudos to her, too, because she had a mic issue happening throughout this piece and she didn't let it stop her. And like probably for the whole first act, her mic was out and we heard her and she got through it. And then finally, thank goodness, in act two, her mic was fixed because that's her moment. But that is such an interesting role and a character development that we get with Eponine that I also felt very different toward this time because she is also a major part in this play, which I think the end kind of highlights because obviously when Fantine's coming at the end, you understand that she's taking him to heaven and all that. But then like a lot of times I feel like I've seen productions where Fantine's got the big one, then like, oh, and then there's Eponine. Instead, they gave Eponine the same entrance length as Fantine, which was really impressive.

[20:22] Jeff Malone: And I will say one thing that is brilliant. I noticed this and this is just me looking at like the world working in interesting ways because we're outside. It was a rainy day earlier in the day and then the rain stopped and we're at the end of the show and it's later at night and you can still you see the lights on the river and it's beautiful and you see Fantine and just as Fantine and Eponine are coming up over the hill, the breeze came. Yeah, I don't know if you felt that or notice that it was I'm not even making this up y'all like the tree. I was like, wait, I just it was a visual because the trees were kind of swaying. It was like, wait there and we didn't have much wind leading up to that a little and there were no there's no fans out in the lawn and it's just you saw those trees moving and her dress flowing flow and her dress and her hair everything was flowing and Fantine and Eponine are coming up and there's these trees are moving this wind is breezy. I'm like, oh my gosh chills. It was just nature doing its thing and theater doing its thing just hybrid at the same time.

[31:25] Jeff Malone: Well, that does wrap up our discussion for this episode. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables.

[31:31] Richie Grasso: Remember, we want to hear from you. Continue the conversation with us on Instagram and TikTok at halfhourpodcast.

[31:36] Jeff Malone: And drop us a comment on Spotify and let us know your thoughts on Hudson Valley Shakespeare's Les Misérables.

[31:42] Richie Grasso: Please also leave us a review. Your reviews mean so much to us. And remember to subscribe to our channel for all past and future episodes.

[31:48] Jeff Malone: Until next time, I'm Jeff.

[31:49] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie, saying ta-ta for now.

[31:50] Jeff Malone: Bye.