The Broadway musical Les Miserables returned in March to an excited and eager audience. There are many theatre nuts out there, and everyone has their favorites. But people don’t just like Les Mis, they love it. People absolutely obsess over it; they eat, drink, and breathe it. So rare is there a musical that people feel so passionate about. The phenomenon that is Les Mis is both exciting and contagious.

Disclaimer: I absolutely love Les Mis. I’ve been humming the songs since elementary school and I know exactly how every note of every song should sound. In fact, it is troubling to write this piece because I feel it is difficult to put into words the way I feel about Les Mis. So, I wouldn’t say I’m exactly jumping on the Les Mis bandwagon. Obviously Les Mis has gained a lot more popularity since a movie adaptation of the musical came out last year. It’s big name stars drew in millions of new fans. And now, everyone in New York will be flocking to the Imperial Theatre to get themselves a ticket. Speaking as a truly obsessive Les Mis fan, I don’t know how I feel about Les Mis’s increased popularity. Now everyone knows the songs and the story and now everyone loves it.

As silly as it seems I get a little bitter when I hear people describing their love for the show, even though they had never heard of it until the movie came out. This is a puzzling reaction. Shouldn’t I want people to share in my passion? Shouldn’t I want people to finally discover this truly amazing show? Now I should be able to talk about Les Mis with almost anyone. But that’s exactly why I can’t help but be a tad disappointed. I loved having Les Mis as my secret. And the only people that also loved the show were people that shared a deep passion for it. The show has been off Broadway since the late 90s, so anyone from my generation also had to have done their fair share of research in order to be knowledgeable of the show. It used to be great having such a love for something no one else really knew or cared about. It’s just a jilting experience to suddenly have people professing their love for something they had just recently discovered.

This possessive feeling over the show is something that I share with the few other Les Mis fans from this generation that have been fans for the majority of their life. The songs, story, and characters are all so impactful. It almost feels as if you are living through these characters. You feel their pain and understand their hardships. When they sing you feel their emotion in every note. It is very rare you feel so strongly about anything in your entire life. But that is the power that Les Mis holds over people. Through its excellent story line and characters you are able to experience so many conflicting emotions, it is incredibly impactful. So Les Mis fans that grew up with this story in their head feel an unbreakable tie to the show. The story is so impactful you can’t help but feel protective of it because it taught you so many emotions and feelings. The show pretty much leaves an imprint on you as a child, never letting you forget the first time you felt such a sea of different emotions at one time.

Some could be reading this article and thinking that for starters I am being a bit dramatic, and that this show sounds like an incredibly exhausting experience. I am being dramatic, but this show really touched me as a child, and it got me thinking on a grander scheme. It got me thinking about empathy and it made me put myself in others shoes. This show means so much to me because this is where I finally got to see an example of the morals and values I always learned about in school but never got to experience. And this show is pretty exhausting to tell you the truth. It is a solid three-hour production with maybe one uplifting song the entire time. No it is not you’re average joyous Broadway production. It is depressing, realistic and beautiful, with songs so pure you will cry.

The new production on Broadway was absolutely phenomenal and of course met critics’ expectations. I highly suggest for anyone interested to see it, you will not regularly see a show on Broadway that is both beautifully entertaining as well as extremely thought-provoking.