Les Miserables at Kennedy Center Opera House

In 1980, a star show was born when Jean-Marc Natel, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Alain Boubil created the original play screenplay for the stage adaptation, Les Misérables (initially in the French language). Based on Victor Hugo’s original book of the identical name, the plot of Les Mis was modified into a musical as a fully lyricized play, which was monumental in that era.

After an initial showing in Paris, there was evidently a growing demand to produce an English version, and once Cameron Macikintosh discovered the score, he instantly fell in love and announced he was going to create an English interpretation hand in hand with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Herbert Kretzmer, who composed the English songs. The English staging of Les Misérables initially premiered with a two-month period at the Barbican Centre, but due to its astounding success and larger audience with the English version, the musical unsurprisingly moved to West End’s Palace Theatre in 1985, a more bustling and premier location, and was performed for almost 20 years. Les Mis then moved once more to another theater, the Queen’s Theatre (which one day renovated and renamed to The Sondheim Theatre in 2019), and maintains its shows up until today. Counting all its productions since its inception all those years ago, Les Mis is as it happens, the longest-running musical so far in this generation.

With almost 40 years in London alone and not even enumerating its shows in foreign locations, including its acclaimed Broadway runs, it is undeniable that this global hit continues to be outstanding in the eyes of the show's attendees. The plot and the rich and touching soundtrack, which revolves around justice, sacrifice, and unrequited love, tugs on a viewer's heartstrings due to the revealed passion behind each song and act performed. Les Misérables has become so critically-acclaimed that the play has been turned into motion pictures numerous times and received very positively even on a different platform.

This coming June’s season of Les Mis has it in District Of Columbia, where the show will be performed on Friday 13th June 2025, in Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington. For fully lyricized show like this, theatergoers all attest to how Kennedy Center Opera House is the top option because of its audio construction and acoustics, as well as a grand stage platform to have the musical. For ticket purchases or questions, tickets are purchasable through the links that can be clicked on the top of this page.