If you think you’ve seen “Les Miserables,” think again.
I’ve seen the musical multiple times, and yet, so much of the national tour’s opening night Tuesday at Hancher Auditorium felt completely new.
Emerging from the shadows of the award-winning 1987 Broadway production is a re-imagining of scenery and staging that breathes new life into Victor Hugo’s 1862 heart-wrenching journey through crime, hope, love and redemption. So many scenes take on a heightened level of intimacy — even in the large, group setting.
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Daily Iowan - Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Les Misérables, the world’s longest running and arguably one of the best musicals created in the 20th century, opened at Hancher Tuesday night.
Seats filled up fast in the belly of Hancher’s main auditorium, and a large screen with a ship weathering a storm loomed over the stage. The “Prologue” song began with force filled with the beauty and strength needed to withstand prison for 19 years. The year is 1815, and Jean Valjean is being released by Inspector Javert and put on parole.
Press Citizen - Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Jack McLeod stood in front of a dark stage inside Hancher Auditorium. Dozens of people were testing lights, one standing on a fully-extended cherry picker on the set, a team setting up a row of costumes behind the stage, a group putting together a drum set with almost 50 different drums or instruments to strike.
"This is a normal day, a laid back one where everything is going right," McLeod, the production stage manager for the visiting tour of "Les Misérables," said Tuesday, around eight hours before curtain on the first showing of the musical playing all this week in Iowa City.
The Daily Iowan - Sunday, December 2, 2018
A little over 30 years ago, the Broadway production of Les Misérables made its debut, transforming the world of musical theatre for one day more. The massive production makes its way to Hancher for the sixth time, now in a sparkly new Hancher and with a new generation of Les Mis fanatics.
Les Misérables premieres on December 4 and will perform through December 9. Because of its large set and cast size, the production performs for a minimum of eight times at a single venue. Chuck Swanson, executive director of Hancher, recalls a memory leading up to Les Mis first performance at Hancher. Swanson had to remove a load of bricks at a loading dock in order to move the giant barricades into the building.
The Daily Iowan - Saturday, December 1, 2018
The five brass players entered through a side entrance, unnoticed at first by the audience. They had already begun to play; heads searched frantically, entranced by the smooth sounds coming from their golden instruments. They walked casually through the audience, and slowly made their way to the stage. They swayed side to side to the rhythm of the music. Their instruments were a part of them, an inseparable extension of their body.
The Gazette - Thursday, November 29, 2018
Nick Cartell dreamed a dream of playing Jean Valjean, and now that dream has come true.
The Phoenix native who played student rebel Marius about 10 years ago in his hometown, has jumped to the signature role in “Les Miserables.” The new national tour of the Tony-winning musical is coming to Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City for eight performances Tuesday (12/4) to Dec. 9.
The Gazette - Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Since 1981, Momix dancer-illusionists have been twisting, bending and shape-shifting in works defying physical boundaries and inventiveness. This Connecticut troupe founded by choreographer Moses Pendleton is returning to Hancher with “Opus Cactus,” grounded in the life and landscape of the American southwest. Created as a 20-minute piece in 2001, “Opus Cactus” has been transformed into a full-length work full of cactuses, slithering lizards and fire dancers. Clive Barnes of the New York Post said: “ ... Pendleton’s ingenuity, theatricality and cunning imagination are seen at full stretch in strange vignettes of the Sonoran desert.”
Daily Iowan - Friday, October 19, 2018
Violet lights softened whatever hard features Hancher’s smaller venue contained while I took inventory of the black stage: a guitar, bass guitar, grand piano, a set of drums, and three mics posed, waiting to be played.
Walking up the stairs on stage left of Hancher came Storm Large and her band, which she referred to as “the boys.” Wearing an elegant black dress, she pulled out a baritone ukulele and began singing one of her original love songs.
The Gazette - Monday, October 8, 2018
Rufus Reid’s five-movement jazz suite, “Quiet Pride,” not only reflects the artistry of Elizabeth Catlett, but her life, as well.
“As quiet as it’s been kept, I think she’s a national treasure,” Reid, 74, said by phone from his home in Teaneck, N.J., across the river from Manhattan. “She’s got more of a reputation now than she did when she was alive, but her works are all over the country.”
Catlett, who died in 2012 at age 96, was a civil rights activist, printmaker, sculptor and educator in the United States and Mexico, who used her art to depict the African-American experience, often focusing on women.
Iowa Now - Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Commissioning works allows Hancher to contribute to the UI’s research mission, academics. On Feb. 25, 1986, Hancher Auditorium hosted the world premiere of its first commissioned work, the Joffrey Ballet’s The Heart of the Matter, which The New York Times said was “bound to be one of the season’s most important ballets.”
Hancher Executive Director Chuck Swanson says that night marked the beginning of a new creative future for the performing arts venue, which has gone on to commission 108 works to date.