Les Misérables
Music	Claude-Michel Schönberg
Lyrics	Herbert Kretzmer
Original text	Alain Boublil Jean-Marc Natel
Book	Alain Boublil Claude-Michel Schönberg
Basis	Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Premiere	24 September 1980: Palais des Sports, Paris
Productions	Multiple global productions since 1985
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical Tony Award for Best Original Score Laurence Olivier Award for Most Popular Show Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music Helpmann Award for Best Musical

Les Misérables (/leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːb(əl), -blə/ lay MIZ-ə-RAHB(-əl), -⁠RAH-blə, French: [le mizeʁabl]), colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz (/leɪ ˈmɪz/ lay MIZ), is a sung-through musical with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, and a book by Schönberg and Boublil, based on the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks. A film adaptation was released in 2012.

Set in early 19th-century France, Les Misérables is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption, released in 1815 after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy. But a police inspector named Javert refuses to let him escape justice and pursues him for most of the play. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempt to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.