It is a brilliant blue morning after the evening before the evening before Thursday morning in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where an excited citizenry is putting the last touches on the set of their production of the One Year Anniversary of the Ten Year Anniversary of the Twenty-five Year Anniversary of the Original 1985 West End Production of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Miserables.

A community of the arts, Yellow Springs has suffered during the pandemic, with locals being unable to put on in-person dance recitals, concerts, and, of course, open-air, theatre-in-the-round musicals. However, with vaccine rollout increasing, Yellow Springs has hope, right on time for the first annual celebration of the ten year anniversary of the locals’ favorite twenty-five year anniversary production of a musical written before 1988.

“We have very particular tastes,” said Marty McIntire, the director of the show, “and, while it may seem–as my students say–‘basic,’ us oldies in the community believe there is no contest as to what the best anniversary of a pre-1988 musical is.”

Despite Mr. McIntire’s confident take on the topic, there are other “oldies” who vehemently disagree.

“I vehemently disagree!” announced Cal Evans, musical director and pit pianist. “I, personally, in my opinion, would argue for the supremacy of the 2012 Shakespeare in the Park production of Into the Woods (1987), but Big Mac over here won’t argue with me because that show was not technically classified as a twenty-five year anniversary!”

Mr. McIntire retorted: “Oh, please, Cal, that’s not the only reason. At last year’s Council of the Musical Lovers of Yellow Springs, Ohio, the board specifically agreed that West End dates were the standard starting points for calculating the bi-bicentennial of a musical! And THAT wasn’t until 1990 for your precious Into the Woods.”

Leaving the two directors to their heated engagement, we asked local celebrity and Yellow Springs resident Dave Chappelle what he thought of the occasion.

“The what?”