Alain Boublil

Alain Boublil born 5 March 1941 is a French musical theatre lyricist and librettist best known for his collaborations with the composer ClaudeMichel Schönberg for musicals on Broadway and Londons West End These include La Révolution Française 1973 Les Misérables 1980 Miss Saigon 1989 Martin Guerre 1996 The Pirate Queen 2006 and Marguerite 2008 Boublil was born in Tunisia to a Sephardic Jewish family Boublils first musical La Révolution Française was the firstever staged French rock opera It was conceived by Boublil in 1973 after he watched the premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar in New York The composer was ClaudeMichel Schönberg with whom Boublil has since collaborated on a number of successful projects including Les Misérables and Miss Saigon Les Misérables first opened in Paris in 1980 On 8 October 1985 an Englishlanguage production of Les Misérables produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird premiered in London at The Royal Shakespeare Companys Barbican Theatre The show transferred to the West Ends Palace Theatre on 4 December 1985 It is the longestrunning musical in West End history Productions based on the NunnMackintosh staging of Les Misérables have been staged all over the world including a second French production which opened in Paris in 1991 Worldwide Les Misérables has been seen by over 50 million people with a total box office gross of over 18 billion Miss Saigon opened in London on 20 September 1989 where it played for 10 consecutive successful years at the Drury Lane Theatre It spawned two US touring companies a Toronto production and has been seen by more than 132 million people in North America for a gross of 612 million With Javier Arroyuelo and Rafael Lopez Sanchez Boublil worked on the French translation of The Rocky Horror Show for its French premiere in 1975 Alain and Daniel Boublil created Abbacadabra a French childrens musical based on songs from the pop group ABBA for French television in 1983 Martin Guerre reached the West End in 1996 and won the 1997 Olivier Award for Best Musical Productions on tour in the UK and the US and Europe followed but the show failed to repeat the success of its two predecessors Boublil has also written the play Le Journal dAdam et Eve based on two short stories by Mark Twain It premiered in Paris in 1994 at Le Petit Montparnasse He has worked on the stage adaptation of Jacques Demys Les Demoiselles de Rochefort together with composer Michel Legrand that opened at Le Palais des Congrès in 2003 Boublil and Schönbergs The Pirate Queena musical about the 16th century Irish pirate chieftain and adventuress Grace OMalleydebuted at Chicagos Cadillac Palace Theatre in fall 2006 It then moved to Broadway where it closed in 2007 The musical starred Stephanie J Block as Grace and Hadley Fraser as Tiernan Source Article Alain Boublil from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30