Receiving the Rights
-Luke 12:27, 28
As a theatre arts teacher for over 25 years, I have been very aware of my Heavenly Father's hand in what I do. Maybe it is because my job makes me a dream-maker/heart-breaker and many pure hearts plead to Him for a chance to shine. Maybe the power of theatre is greater than even I realize. Maybe I am just a "lily" enjoying the incredible blessings from a loving father who finds important what His children find important. Whatever the reason, I have been blessed beyond measure many times over, but none quite so "gloriously arrayed" as my last experience.
There are some shows that seem to carry power just in their name. Such a musical is Les Miserables. For many years my performing arts colleagues and I have determined the talent pool as a "Les Mis" year if we have more than our fair share of male talent. In the 18 years that I have worked with my two amazing and talented colleagues, we have had "Les Mis" talent exactly three times.
We all recognized the "Les Mis" talent pool in our 2013 juniors and unlike the other times we had this level of talent, this seemed to be the right time to produce Les Mis. And so despite the fact that the movie had just come out, and a local professional theatre was slated to do the show Spring 2013 We requested the rights. We had already scheduled a Musical Revue Gala for September and The Madison Square Garden version of A Christmas Carol for December. We planned to produce Les Miserables in May,-- the last month of the school year. This time slot was not a popular one with our administration.
I requested the rights for A Christmas Carol and Les Mis at the same time. The rights for A Christmas Carol came right away. However, Les Mis was "pending" for quite a while. We figured it was because Les Mis is so popular that it would take longer to go through the right channels. It has been my experience that a decline notice comes almost immediately where as popular show titles take a while to process. I had a tickle of worry that we had not yet secured the rights, but my colleagues were confident that we would be OK, so we announced our season and started the audition process.
We had just finished the first round of auditions and had posted call-backs when we received two pieces of devastating news: First, the administration would not support a musical in May and second, the company who owns the rights to Les Mis declined the rights.
As soon as I received the rejection notice I called a representative. He delivered an even harsher blow. He said that Les Mis was in such a restricted mode that requests for rights wouldn't even be considered until March of 2014 and that those rights would not be available until July of 2015.
My colleagues and I were stunned. We had felt confident that this was the right year to produce the show. Even with New York and our own administration saying NO we still felt compelled to proceed in our quest to do Les Mis in May of 2014. However, this was now truly an impossible dream. But that's who we are...dreamers of dreams... which is just a 'theatrical' way of saying "women of faith." All three of us felt that we still had hope, a small tickle of hope, but hope none-the-less. We had to test this hope to see if it were truly faith or just wishful thinking. We know that faith without works is dead and a tiny, tiny whispering told me that IF we wanted this we would have to work for it...wishful thinking or faith?
Our first step was to come up with a plan B just in case our hope was really only wishful thinking. So we crafted an "Evening of French Musicals" and presented it to our students. We first had to break the news that the rights had been declined but we would be doing a few songs from Les Mis mingled with songs from The Phantom of the Opera and The Scarlet Pimpernel . Our students were devastated. However, my colleague had the very strong impression that this was like the Berlin Wall - it seemed as if the wall would be up forever, but it did come down. One of the students reminded her it didn't come down until after 40 years. She said "Actually it came down after the right group of youth." Profound.
Our next step was to find out WHY the show was so restricted. We figured that a touring company must be coming in either 2014 or 2015 and/or other semi-professional theatres must be doing the show. We talked with a few companies and determined that a company in Logan may be doing Les Mis summer of 2014. We wrote to them and waited for a response. During the wait, one of my colleagues had a wonderful, spiritual experience and immediately shared it with me. She had been prompted to read Doctrine and Covenants 104:78-83:
"And again, Verily I say unto you, concerning your debts -- behold it is my will that you shall pay all your debts. And it is my will that you shall humble yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your diligence and humility and the prayer of faith. And inasmuch as you are diligent and humble, and exercise the prayer of faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance. Therefore write speedily to New York and write according to that which shall be dictated by my spirit; and I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, that it shall be taken away out of their minds to bring affliction upon you. And inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory. I give unto you a promise that you shall be delivered this once out of your bondage."
This passage of scripture strengthened our hope. And it also gave credence to another inkling I had been having-- to re-apply for the rights. However, I did not act on this.
Then we learned that a popular theatrical company in West Valley was slated to produce Les Mis early spring of 2014. We contacted this company. They told us that the reason we wouldn't be able to obtain the rights was because Broadway was planning a revival of the show. When that happens all rights are pretty much shut down. At this point I received a VERY strong impression to RE-APPLY for the rights. This time I acted immediately and re-applied. After I sent the application, I doubted myself. But the Lord stepped in again with words from his servants the prophets. I saw the June 2013 issue of the Ensign magazine and opened it up to an article by Elder J. Devn Cornish "Asking for Help Through Prayer." This article described step by step how we as our Heavenly Father's children can pray for help. We need to acknowledge that "prayer is a privilege and the soul's sincere desire." After we pray we should "actively demonstrate our faith in the Lord and do our part." We are not to "sit passively waiting." "We should maintain faith even when it seems our prayers are not being answered."
This article was just what I needed. It let me know I had done the right thing. The scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants had said to "write speedily to New York." I had the impression to re-apply. And now because of this article, I knew what to pray for: I told Heavenly Father what we desired -- the rights to be able to produce Les Miserables. By following His prompting to re-apply, He could now soften the heart of whomever was in charge of determining who would receive the rights to this show.
Then my colleagues and I specifically prayed for the softening of hearts for not only 'New York' but also our administration. We kept a constant prayer in our hearts plus offered plenty of voiced petitions to the Lord. I added fasting to this desire knowing that God has the ability to move mountains, take down the Berlin Wall, part the Red Sea, soften hearts. We reminded the Lord that this group of his children were primed for the story of Les Mis; that the young man we had chosen to play Jean valJean was worthy of this role and that he would make a difference; that they truly were the right group of youth. We told him that we were humbly asking for this blessing and that we would accept whatever answer he gave us. However, we also recognized the whisperings of hope and the promptings of the spirit that gave us great faith that he would grant us this blessing. We just weren't sure what version of Victory He would send us.
We had done everything we could. Now we had to wait.
I came into my office on a Tuesday. about five days after I had re-applied. I opened my email and saw one from the company who owns the right to Les Mis. My heart stopped. I opened the email and immediately recognized the hand of the Lord as I read the words that we had been granted the rights to perform Les Miserables May, 2014. I fell to my knees and poured out my gratitude to a Father in Heaven who cares about the lilies of the field, about each sparrow that falls, and about the happiness and growth of each of His children.
But the story doesn't stop there
We decided to call as many cast members together to announce the earth-shaking news. AFTER we had a mass text go out to almost 100 students we realized we had not cleared it with our principal. He was actually on vacation, so we sent a text telling him we had the rights. He did not answer the text. We then asked him in a text if we could announce it to the students (we didn't tell him we had already set up a meeting and that the students would be arriving within the hour). He did answer this text saying he was on the ocean and would call shortly. We wondered if we should cancel the meeting...but we didn't. I went to my office and once again fell to my knees and pled with the Lord to soften our principal's heart. I had the distinct impression that my prayer would be answered at the very last moment.
The students started to come. We knew we couldn't announce anything without the OK from our principal. I thought he would call right before the meeting. No call. We handed out a calendar, we stalled. We talked about summer rehearsals, we stalled, we talked about this, we talked about that. And we stalled. Our students were pretty miffed that we had called them to meet with no real news to give them. We hemmed, we hawed. We finally decided that we were not going to be hearing from our boss and that we would need to call another meeting. We excused everyone with a promise of another meeting, However, just as the students were standing to leave, my phone rang. It was the principal. I asked the students to please wait a few more minutes. After a ten minute conversation I was able to announce that we had indeed been given the rights to Les Miserables and we had the principals permission, if not his blessing.
Each step of this journey was such a testimony-building experience. I know that the Lord loves each of us and is interested in every facet of our lives. I know that if he cares about what show I produce at school, that he also cares about the welfare my family. I know I can ask him in faith for any blessing I desire and that he will give me specific promptings to continue in faith and will let me know what is required to receive each desired blessing. I have no reason to doubt His love, His devotion, His desire to bless his children.
"To love another person is to see the face of God."
-Les Miserables
Robin Murdock Edwards
2013
