Miss Saigon is built around Kim, a 17-year-old orphan, and Chris, the American Marine she falls for in the last days of the Vietnam War, while the Engineer, a hustling nightclub owner, schemes his way toward America. Around them are John, Chris’s friend; Ellen, his American wife; Thuy, Kim’s cousin; and Tam, her son.
Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, the team behind Les Misérables, wrote it with lyricist Richard Maltby Jr., moving Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to Saigon in 1975. It opened at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in September 1989 and on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre on April 11, 1991. Here is who everyone is, what they want and which songs give them away. Spoilers follow, all the way to the final scene. If you’re new to the show, start with our beginner’s guide to Miss Saigon.
| Character | Who they are | Key songs |
|---|---|---|
| Kim | A 17-year-old orphan working her first night at the Dreamland bar | “Sun and Moon,” “I’d Give My Life for You” |
| Chris Scott | An American Marine sergeant | “Why, God, Why?,” “Last Night of the World” |
| The Engineer | The Eurasian owner of Dreamland, desperate to get to America | “The American Dream,” “If You Want to Die in Bed” |
| John Thomas | Chris’s friend and fellow Marine | “Bui Doi” |
| Ellen | Chris’s American wife | “I Still Believe,” “Maybe” |
| Thuy | Kim’s cousin, promised to her in marriage | “You Will Not Touch Him” (with Kim) |
| Tam | Kim and Chris’s three-year-old son | A non-singing role at the centre of everything |
Who is Kim in Miss Saigon?
Kim is the show’s heart and its tragedy. When we meet her in April 1975, she is 17, an orphan, and working her first night at Dreamland, the Engineer’s bar for American GIs. She is shy, out of place, and far tougher than anyone around her suspects.
Her night with Chris turns into a love affair in “Sun and Moon,” and then into a makeshift wedding. When Saigon falls and Chris is evacuated without her, Kim spends three years waiting, raising their son, Tam, and believing he will come back. Everything she does after that is for the boy. “I’d Give My Life for You” is her promise to him, and the show holds her to it.
For the song that starts it all, see our Sun and Moon guide.
Who is Chris, and why does he leave?
Chris Scott is a US Marine sergeant who is sick of the war and of himself when John buys him a night with Kim at Dreamland. He falls hard and fast. “Why, God, Why?” catches him lying awake beside her, furious that he has found something worth staying for in a city he wants to escape.
He doesn’t choose to abandon her. Called to the US Embassy, he is inside when the gates close and the evacuation order comes, and he is flown out while Kim is left outside. Back in America he marries Ellen without telling her about Kim, and the nightmares follow him.
That’s what makes Chris a hard part to play well. The show asks you to believe in his love and to notice how little it costs him compared with what it costs Kim. A good Chris lets both be true.
Who is the Engineer?
The Engineer is the show’s ringmaster: a French-Vietnamese hustler who runs Dreamland, sells whatever and whoever he can, and dreams only of a visa to the United States. He is funny, cynical and very quick on his feet, and he survives everything from the fall of Saigon to a sleazy Bangkok club by working out who to flatter next.
His songs are some of the best in the score. “If You Want to Die in Bed” is pure survival, “What a Waste” is a sneer at the Saigon he’s leaving, and “The American Dream” is a full Act 2 showstopper in which his fantasy of America becomes a neon-lit nightmare of greed. He sees Kim and Tam mainly as a ticket out.
The role was also the centre of a Broadway fight before the show even opened in New York. In 1990, Actors’ Equity barred a white British actor from repeating the Eurasian Engineer on Broadway; the producer cancelled the production, more than 600 Equity members petitioned, and the union reversed its decision (Los Angeles Times). The 2017 revival brought renewed debate about how the show portrays Vietnamese women, alongside defenders who pointed to the major roles it gives Asian American performers (NPR, American Theatre).
Want to play these songs yourself? Schönberg’s big ballads, from “Sun and Moon” to “Last Night of the World,” are sweeping chord-driven melodies that make satisfying practice for pianists who want to accompany a singer. Try Pianoforall.
Disclosure: this is an affiliate link. Musicals On Line may earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you.
Who are John, Ellen, Thuy and Tam?
John Thomas is Chris’s friend and fellow Marine, the one who pays for his night with Kim. After the war he works for an organization that connects Bui Doi, the children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women, with their fathers. He opens Act 2 with “Bui Doi,” a choral appeal on their behalf, and it is John who tells Chris that Kim and Tam are alive.
Ellen is Chris’s American wife. She is no villain; she loves a husband who still has nightmares about a woman he won’t talk about. Her duet with Kim, “I Still Believe,” sets the two wives in different countries singing about the same man. Her Act 2 solo has changed over time: “Now That I’ve Seen Her” was replaced by “Maybe” in the 2014 London and 2017 Broadway productions.
Thuy is Kim’s cousin, to whom she was promised in marriage at 13. He bursts in on her wedding celebration, is rejected and curses them all, then returns three years later as a commissar in the new regime. When he threatens Tam, Kim shoots him to protect her son.
Tam is Kim and Chris’s son, about three years old for most of Act 2. He hardly speaks, but every major decision in the second half is about him: who will raise him, and where.
Look out, too, for Gigi, the bar girl crowned “Miss Saigon” in the opening scene, who leads “The Movie in My Mind,” a hard-eyed fantasy of escape that sets up everything Kim will want.
How do the characters echo Madama Butterfly?
Miss Saigon is based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, which premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1904. The opera’s American naval lieutenant and young geisha become a Marine sergeant and a bar girl in wartime Saigon, and the characters line up closely:
- Kim is Cio-Cio-San, the Butterfly, who waits years for her American to return.
- Chris is Pinkerton, though the musical makes him far more sympathetic.
- Ellen is Kate, the American wife who arrives to take the child.
- Tam is Butterfly’s son, the reason for the final sacrifice.
The ending follows Puccini too. When Kim understands that Chris and Ellen will not take Tam to America unless she is gone, she shoots herself and dies in Chris’s arms. The biggest change is the Engineer, who has no real equivalent in the opera and gives the musical its satirical bite. For the history the writers drew on, read the true story that inspired Miss Saigon, and for a song-by-song walk-through, our Miss Saigon songs explained guide. If you know the writers’ other blockbuster, our Les Misérables vs Miss Saigon comparison sets them side by side, and our Hamilton characters explained guide covers another sung-through cast.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the main character in Miss Saigon?
Kim is the main character. The story follows her from her first night at the Dreamland bar in Saigon in April 1975, aged 17, through her love affair with Chris, three years of waiting, and her final sacrifice for their son, Tam. The Engineer is the show’s biggest scene-stealer, but Kim is its heart.
What happens to Kim at the end of Miss Saigon?
Kim dies. When she realises that Chris and his wife, Ellen, will only take Tam to America if she is not there to raise him herself, she shoots herself so her son can have a better life. She dies in Chris’s arms. The ending deliberately mirrors Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the opera the musical is based on.
Who sings “Sun and Moon” in Miss Saigon?
Kim and Chris sing “Sun and Moon” in Act 1, after their first night together at Dreamland. It is the moment the transaction turns into a love story, and its melody returns later in the show as a reminder of what they have lost. Our Sun and Moon guide walks through the song in detail.
Is Miss Saigon based on Madama Butterfly?
Yes. Miss Saigon is based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly. The writers moved the story of an American officer who abandons a young woman and their child to Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Kim, Chris, Ellen and Tam correspond to Butterfly, Pinkerton, Kate and Butterfly’s son.
Who wrote Miss Saigon?
Claude-Michel Schönberg wrote the music, and Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. wrote the lyrics, adapted from Boublil’s original French text. Schönberg and Boublil had already written Les Misérables. Miss Saigon opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London in 1989 and on Broadway in 1991.
