Miss Saigon: A Musical with Credentials

The first time I saw Miss Saigon, I was fifteen years old and it was at the Madame Walker Theatre. Even though I knew what the story was about, the musical left me speechless. I felt what the characters felt and was with them when they cried, discovered new love, and held on tight when hope seemed to fail. Unforgettable songs such as "The Heat is On in Saigon," "The Movie in My Mind," "Why God Why," "Sun and Moon," "The Last Night of the World," "The Morning of the Dragon," "I Still Believe," "BuiDoi," and "The American Dream" impressively invoke the steamy nights, crowds, passion and danger of Saigon.

Written by Alain Boublil and Claude MichelSchönberg, Miss Saigon is one of the biggest stage successes ever, raking in more than $1.3 billion at the international box office since its world premiere in London in September 1989.

The wellknown musical, Miss Saigon, took its final curtain call on December 31, 2000, after an almost 10 yearrun, on Broadway. Miss Saigon, a Vietnam War era musical, will have played its 4,063rd performance. The wellloved story follows the romance between an American soldier and a young Vietnamese woman. It is the story of two young lovers torn apart by the fortunes of destiny and held together by a burning passion and the fate of a small child.

The story revolves around Kim, a young Vietnamese woman who is forced to work in a sex shop in Saigon. She quickly falls in love with Chris, a Marine guard at the U.S. embassy, but when Saigon falls and the old city disappears forever under the red banners and yellow stars of the Viet Cong, Chrisnot realizing that Kim is pregnantis forced to retreat. He returns home and eventually marries, but a few years later, he and his wife return to find Kim, who is now determined to make Chris take their son back to the United States.

The musical is a modern take on Belasco/Puccini's Madame Butterfly. It opened on Broadway, April 11, 1991, starring Jonathan Pryce and Lea Salonga. The longrunning London production closed last October, shortly after a 10th anniversary celebration.

Miss Saigon received 11 Tony nominations in 1991, including Best Musical, and won three (for Pryce and Salonga as Actor and Actress in a Musical, and Hinton Battle as Best Featured Actor). Miss Saigon also received the Outer Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical.