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Amelie (Musical)

Hey, everyone Steph here and today I am going to talk about the musical Amelie. I am doing this as part of my underappreciated musicals series. I know it's been a while but I'm back! Let's get to it.
Productions

Amelie is a musical based on a film of the same name. The show has had three productions including the Broadway one.  The first production opened at Berkeley Rep with Samanta Barks as Amelie. The show then moved to LA where it ran from December 4th, 2016- January 15th, 2017. For this Phillipa Soo of Hamilton fame was in the title role of Amelie. The last stop of this show, for now, was Broadway: the show opened with previews beginning March 9th, 2017, and the official opening was April 3rd, 2017. The show closed on May 21st, 2017 after 27 previews and 56 performances.

Plot

We are first introduced to young Amelie and her family (Times Are Hard For Dreamers/Prologue). Amelie parents Ralphel and Amadine both have issues, and so Amelie feels isolated and emotionally distant from her parents.  Her only contact with her parents comes from when she has her monthly checkups from her father, and he misdiagnosis her with a heart condition(World's Best Dad). Her parents begin homeschooling Amelie, as they fear that she should not interact with others in her condition. One day, while her mother is teaching her Amelie, imagines that her goldfish Fluffy is coming to life(World's Best Freind). Amadine and Amelie spend the day in Notre Dame to make up for making Amelie flush her fish down the toilet. As they leave her mother is crushed, and killed by a suicidal tourist. The death hitting Ralphel hard, he builds a shrine to his late wife in his backyard, complete with a Garden Gnome.

Years pass and Amelie becomes bored with her quiet life, her distant father and so she moves out. Five years later we meet her again now a waitress at a cafe in Montmartre (Times Are Hard For Dreamers). Amelie lives a quiet, and a happy life here and she spends time with different people she has met (the Commute). On the night of Princess Diana's death, Amelie discovers a box of childhood items that belong to the man that used to live in her apartment (The Bottle Drops). Amelie anonymously gives the box back to him, and if he is touched by her gesture then she will become an anonymous do-gooder. Frist, she meets a cranky grocer who abuses his assistant. At the train station Amelie meets a man around her age Nino, she is attracted to him but the train comes before she can introduce herself.  At the grocer's mother's house, she finds out the name of the man whose box she has the last name is Bredoteau. As Amelie is on her way home Nino spots her, and becomes intrigued by her box. 

Time passes and Amelie's search for  Bredoteau isn't working out. One day she speaks to her neighbor Raymond Dufayel who suffers from a bone disease, so he is called the glass man (The Girl With The Glass). He recognizes the box and gives her the correct last name of Bretodeau. Amelie looks up Bretodeau's name in the phone book and gives him a call using a pay phone telling him where he can get the box( How To Tell Time). After he gets the box he calls his ex-wife and arranges to meet their son. Taking this a cue Amelie becomes a do-gooder taking a blind man on a tour of the streets (Tour De France.) 

Later that night Amelie has a strange dream where she has a lavish funeral where she is serenaded by Elton John (Goodbye Amelie). Amelie realizes that she has not helped her father and visits him the next day, and tries to convince him to move (Backyard). He refuses saying that he can't leave the gnome alone, so she takes him in secret. Nino drops a photo album when she spots him on her way home, and so she takes it.  She looks at it Raymond Dufayel, and Nino appears and explains the photos to the audience (When The Booth Goes Bright). Amelie watches and Dufayel sees that the two of them are attracted to each other.

Amelie seeks out of his place of work a sex shop dressed as a nun. While she waits for Nino, the other employees mock him, and Amelie runs away (Sister Pickel).  He chases her but she escapes and reflects on her childhood (Halfway). Amelie calls Nino, but she refuses to give her identity instead sending him a photo of her in disguise. Meanwhile, Nino has been searching Paris for Amelie (Thin Air). While doing other good deeds she notices the flyers and runs home sending Nino another photo and asking him t meet her at Montmartre Carousel. Amelie sends Nino on a trail to the album (Blue Arrow Suit), and she watches him follow it. 

Tuesday comes and Nino is late for the meeting Amelie imagines an elaborate reasoning (The Late Nino  Quincampoix.) When Nino does come to the cafe and he recognizes Amelie she runs. Outside the cafe, Amelie's co-workers give Nino Amelie's address (Better Hair Cut).  At home Dufayel tries to talk to Amelie, be she angerly tells him to stay out of her business, he has gotten out of his painting rut and painted a painting of her. Nino shows up outside her door and begs Amelie to let him inside and stop running from him (Stay). She lets him inside her apartment. She opens the door and tells Nino that she wants to be with him. They kiss and Amelie takes him to and they take photos together. 

The cast reocridng for the Broadway Cast is on Spotify, Itunes, and phyical CD. 

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