"To love another person is to see the face of God."

      If you can guess the source of the quote above - then you are my audience today.  If not, then, eh, maybe I can bend your arm a bit.  
      I know not every person is down with actors who burst into song, but I am a total sucker for it, and especially when it comes to my all-time favorite musical and novel, Les Miserables or what my students liked to tell me (after a history teacher let them know what it meant), The Damned.  After teaching this novel for many years, and MAKING my students do a reader's theatre of "One Day More" with all the parts, watch the Live musical performance, and watch the 1998 (non-singing) version with Liam Neeson, you'd think I'd be so over it.  And I will admit that the novel, even the abridged version, is a bit long.  But throw me some French history, a revolution, national pride, dirty rotten scoundrels, a beautiful child, a poor mother, a man on a mission, and a forgiven galley slave who "becomes an honest man" and I can't help but get a little goose-bumby when I watch this YouTube video.
     Even if you aren't an over-enthusiastic Victor Hugo fan, you can at least appreciate these great actors.  Les Miserables is coming to Houston on Broadway in November and I'll be sitting in my nose-bleed seats, and when Les Mis comes to the Cinemark this December, I'll be the one waiting in line on opening night.  I'm a sucker, every time.
    If you want to join my fan club, let me know and we'll cry over our popcorn together while Fantine "dreams a dream of time gone by."