Les Miserables Creators Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg to Bring Revamped Martin Guerre to the West End

Les Miserables and Miss Saigon creators Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg are currently working on a “deep rewrite” of their 1996 musical Martin Guere, according to U.K. website The Stage. The composers hope to bring their production to the West End as early as 2014. No dates or theater have been set.

Martin Guerre features a book by Schonberg and Boublil, lyrics by Boublil and Stephen Clark and music by Schonberg. The musical opened in London in 1996 and was revised after it closed in 1998, reopening the same year at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. A 1999 production of the rewritten Martin Guerre toured the United States, starring Hugh Panaro, Erin Dilly and Stephen R. Buntrock, but the show never made it to Broadway. The show was produced again in England at the Watermill Theatre in 2007, and producer Cameron Mackintosh intended to bring that version to the West End in 2010, but the production fell apart over casting. Boublil told The Stage that the composers are revising the musical for a second time because they feel “it’s still not finished.... This will be a completely new version.”

Based loosely on the real-life story of Martin Guerre and the 1982 movie The Return of Martin Guerre, the musical tells the story of a man who, in order to produce a Catholic heir, is forced into an arranged marriage with Bertrande de Rols. While Guerre expresses his dissatisfaction with the marriage, his friend Guillaume is secretly in love with Guerre’s wife.

In addition to Martin Guerre, Boublil and Schonberg stated that they are working on unspecified "small revisions" for the new West End production of Miss Saigon, slated to open in 2014.

Click below to see Panaro sing "I'm Martin Guerre" in the 1999 U.S. touring production of Martin Guerre.