Queer women of color lead “Les Mis” national tour

Haley Dortch and Christine Heesun Hwang

The beloved Broadway musical “Les Misérables” returns to the national touring scene this fall, with a new production arriving at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music on Nov. 2 for a two-week engagement. This go-around, two queer women of color are at the helm, playing some of the most iconic roles in the musical theater canon.

Haley Dortch makes her national tour debut as Fantine, the good-hearted, mistreated factory worker who sings the impassioned classic “I Dreamed a Dream,” and Christine Heesun Hwang takes on the feisty, fearless Eponine who belts “On My Own” and dies valiantly for the cause of the French Revolution. Both actors are new to the world of “Les Mis,” as it’s colloquially known, but have a personal history with the musical.

“I grew up in Iowa, so this is actually the first time I’ve seen a stage production of the show,” said Hwang, who is based in New York and Seattle. “I watched the movie back in middle school and thought, this is so interesting. I memorized the movie cast album, and I became very much interested in theater in that sense.”

Dortch, a Texas native, also came to the material through the movie. “I was still very young when the movie came out, so I didn’t quite understand all of what was going on,” she said in a separate interview. “Then I saw the national tour in 2018. I remember calling my mom at intermission, because she wasn’t able to make it to the show, and I said, ‘This is the best national tour I have ever seen.’ Now I get to do it eight times a week, so that’s really exciting.”

Prior to the pandemic, Hwang was on tour with “Miss Saigon,” serving as the matinee alternate for the leading role of Kim. That musical was written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schӧnberg, the same creative team behind “Les Mis.” The transition from one mega-musical to another felt seamless.

“I started auditioning back up again last December, and this sort of landed on my plate,” Hwang said. “Come spring, it was just about getting into the room and getting into the process of auditioning for the role. It was a pretty clean-cut process: I did about two weeks of auditions, and then a few weeks later I found out I had the part.”

For Dortch, hitting the road meant taking time off from college, where she is still an undergraduate. At 20 years old, she is one of the musical’s youngest cast members, though she feels fully at home in the role of Fantine.

“I’m a junior right now at the University of Michigan,” Dortch said. “I left school for the semester, but I’m hoping to return to all my classes in the spring semester and to continue getting my BFA.” Some students do a semester abroad, but rarely does it take them to 18th-century France.

Although the musical is nearly 40 years old, it continues to resonate with fans of all ages and backgrounds. “It’s ultimately a story about love, and about moving forward in the face of adversity,” Hwang told me. “I think now more than ever, it is resonating with people who are coming out of this pandemic and the reckoning we’ve had within our own country in the past two-and-a-half years, with racism and looking at how the culture uploads certain societal norms. For me, it’s ultimately been about that love — and even though it is a heavy show, even though there is grief and darkness, I have been saying to myself throughout this whole process that in order for light there has to be darkness.”

Having queer and BIPOC performers at the center of production also adds an additional layer of visibility. “It’s such a beautiful thing to me,” said Dortch. “It means a lot to be a queer person of color in a leading position onstage, and to have this next generation of performers watch someone like me be in this leadership position, and feel comfortable being who they are. It makes my heart feel really warm to think that I can be a role model for someone. Speaking about queerness and being a person of color allows a comfortability for the next generation.”

In the past, there have been multiple actors in “Les Mis” who have played multiple roles in multiple productions. Playing both Fantine and Eponine is a common switch. I asked Hwang if she would ever be interested in taking on the part.

“I want to be Marius!” she said, referencing her character’s unrequited love interest. “I feel like I want to play every tenor role.”

When I mentioned this to Dortch, she was delighted. “Christine is so right,” she said. “Playing Marius would be super fun. One day, I think it would be amazing to play a character like Valjean, if I were a bit older. Singing ‘Bring Him Home’ would be so much fun. That would be awesome.”

You never know. But in the meantime, you can catch these dynamic performers mounting the barricades around the country, singing their hearts out and offering representation that young artists can aspire to.

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