Cast and Creatives | Les Misérables 2019

Weddings

THE AUTHORS

Claude-Michel Schönberg
Music and Book

Born in 1944 of Hungarian parents, Claude-Michel Schönberg began his career in France as a singer, writer and producer of pop songs. In collaboration with Alain Boublil he is the book co-writer and the composer of La Révolution Française, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Martin Guerre and The Pirate Queen. In 2008 his new musical, Marguerite, in collaboration with Alain Boublil, Michel Legrand and Herbert Kretzmer opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Claude-Michel has supervised overseas productions and co-produced several international cast albums of his shows.

In 2001 he composed his first ballet score, Wuthering Heights, which was created by the Northern Ballet in 2002. His ballet, Cleopatra, which opened in 2011, was his second collaboration with David Nixon and his seventh complete score. In 2012 Claude-Michel co-wrote the screenplay and reconceived the music for the Les Misérables musical movie. Golden Globe winner, Oscar nominee and recent Grammy award winner for outstanding contribution to the creative community, Mr. Schönberg married the English ballerina, Charlotte Talbot, in 2003. He is the father of one son and two daughters.

Alain Boublil
Book

Alain Boublil is the author of the librettos and original lyrics for the musicals La Révolution Française, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Martin Guerre, and The Pirate Queen, all in collaboration with Claude-Michel Schönberg, as well as Marguerite with Michel Legrand, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer. Boublil is the recipient of two Tony Awards, two Grammys, two Victoire de la Musique Awards and a Molière Award for Les Misérables. He received an Evening Standard Drama Award for Miss Saigon and a Laurence Olivier Award for Martin Guerre.

In 2014, he wrote a new play, Manhattan Parisienne, with songs by Gershwin, Cole Porter, Charles Aznavour, Michel Legrand, Steve Allen, and more, which recently played in New York. He is the author/librettist ofAbbacadabra, of the stage adaptation of Demy/Legrand film Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, author of the play The Diary of Adam and Eve (based upon short stories by Mark Twain), and the prize-winning French novel Les dessous de soi. He co-wrote the screenplay of the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated film Les Misérables. He has received a New York Chapter Honors Grammy award for his outstanding contribution to the creative community. Currently he is working on a revised version of Martin Guerre to open in the U.K. Boublil lives in New York with his wife, actress/singer Marie Zamora, and is the father of four sons.

Herbert Kretzmer
Lyrics

Herbert Kretzmer was born in South Africa, where he began a career in journalism writing the commentary for a weekly cinema newsreel. He came to live in London in 1954, and has since pursued twin careers as newspaperman and songwriter. He was feature writer on The Daily Sketch and a profile writer on The Sunday Despatch. He joined The Daily Express in 1960 and later became its drama critic, a post he held for 18 years, covering about 3,000 first nights. From 1979 to 1987, he wrote television criticism for The Daily Mail, winning, in this capacity, two national press awards. As a lyric writer he wrote weekly songs for That Was The Week That Was and the later Ned Sherrin television shows. He won an Ivor Novello Award for the Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren comedy song Goodness Gracious Me .

Other award-winning songs include two written with, and for, Charles Aznavour: Yesterday When I Was Young and the chart-topping She . Herbert Kretzmer wrote the book and lyrics for the West End musical Our Man Crichton, which starred Kenneth More and Millicent Martin, and the lyrics for The Four Musketeers, which ran for over a year at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring Harry Secombe as D Artagnan. He also supplied the lyrics for the Anthony Newley musical film Can Heironymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? He was the co-lyricist for Kristina which he wrote with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (ABBA), premiered at Carnegie Hall, New York, in September 2009. Herbert Kretzmer s latest work is Marguerite, written with Michel Legrand, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg.