Life on Road Never Gets Boring for ‘Les Miz’ Cast

SAN DIEGO —  “Les Miserables” is that kind of show. Jerry Wolf, wardrobe supervisor for the third national tour of the musical mega-hit, has seen it from out front almost 90 times. Of course, it’s his job. But he never gets tired of it, as he has other shows he’s worked.

Nine-year-old Talaria Haast eventually might have beat his record. By the time she was cast as one of the two girls who alternate as Young Cosette and Young Eponine, she had seen the show 12 times, beginning at age 6. It’s that kind of show.

“Les Miz” is still running on Broadway. The first national tour, which recently played the Hollywood Pantages, is now, in industry parlance, “sitting down” in Chicago, and there are two companies in Canada and others around the world. The second national tour is in limbo somewhere, but the third national company, playing one- and two-week stands, arrives Tuesday in San Diego. People never seem to tire of mounting the barricades along with the fiery young revolutionaries in producer Cameron Mackintosh’s mammoth adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic.

Audiences should definitely not feel slighted because this is the third national company. There is absolutely no difference between this production and the ones sitting down on Broadway and in Chicago.

“Cameron won’t compromise on the scope of it at all,” says this company’s production stage manager, Michael John Egan. “That’s one thing he said from the very beginning, especially when they were talking about how this production would move, and where it would be able to play. He said, ‘If we have to compromise the look of the show, then we just won’t be able to play that theater.’ ”

Egan gestures toward the gigantic set, which rises 35 feet above the stage floor (with drops that “fly” to 75 feet when not in use), and laughs. “You’d be amazed what this thing can squeeze into,” he says. “It’s a one-unit set. There’s a lot that happens on it, but once you get it in the building, with your various shoehorns and things to squeeze it in, it’s there. It’s not like ‘Show Boat,’ where you have to hide the boat for part of Act 2.”

It’s getting everything in that sometimes causes a problem for Egan and the crew of 25 stagehands that travel with the production. Even with the 40 to 45 local stagehands that augment the crew--15 are retained to help run the show--backstage space and even loading doors have to be juggled and often altered. About 200 separate pieces, including sound and automation equipment, have to fit in to create the special world of “Les Miz” that exists from footlights to the back of the stage.

Egan, who worked “Les Miz” on Broadway and has been with all the national companies at one time or another, says, “I like it out on the road. It’s always a new challenge. That’s where the fun comes in.” Admitting that sometimes the companies of sit-down productions relax into long runs, he claims that happens less with this company. “We open for a whole new town every week or two. It’s kind of a built-in safety check on this company, because opening nights, and for the first few nights, they have so much more to deal with that they have to be on their toes.

“Boredom is virtually not a problem with this company. One of the requirements of the job is keeping it fresh every night. This company just has a little extra help doing it. They have to remember, first of all, where their costume changes are, because they’re not always in our normal setup. Sometimes they have to go downstairs, sometimes the makeup tables are in a different spot. Opening night they have to keep thinking, ‘What theater am I in? When I go off through this curtain, where am I heading?”

One help in getting around a new theater comes from the many signs featuring the show’s logo, a drawing from the original edition of the novel of young Cosette. The signs read: Cosette says such-and-such is this way . . . with an arrow pointing to dressing rooms, costume racks, lounges and even to stage right and stage left.

Young Haast, who plays Cosette, giggles at a suggestion that the actors just follow her. She’s usually as lost as the rest of them. But she loves being on the road. “I’m having a wonderful time,” she says, “even though I miss my house,” which is about two minutes from Los Angeles’ Shubert Theatre, where she spent two months in L.A.’s sit-down production before joining this tour.

Fellow cast members Joshua Finkel, who plays Claquesous and understudies the evil Thenardier, and Tina Paradiso, who is a “swing,” covering everybody, also have mixed feelings about touring.

Paradiso liked the “family” feel of playing in the Shubert company. The family is smaller on the road, and a big chunk of it is made up of strangers. “When you’re sitting in a city like Los Angeles, you’re doing everything else--you’re going to auditions and interviews, you’re in contact with your agents, and you’re seeing your friends. You get really comfortable when you’re in a company and you sit, but that can be detrimental. Josh and I are probably the only two people who understand what it’s like sitting in one city with this show. I find it much easier traveling.”

Josh Finkel agrees with her, but finds that it’s “just as exhausting to do a five-show weekend and wake up at 8 o’clock Monday morning after closing the show Sunday night and packing till 2, then get on some plane or bus, travel all day, check into the next hotel, crash and then wake up and try to locate where you are in the downtown, then you do your eight shows. It’s exhausting in a different way. A lot of times we do two weeks straight with no days off. So, in San Diego, it’s 16 straight performances, have Sunday and Monday off, so we can travel through Tuesday and open the next city Tuesday night. Vocally, straight through with two five-show weekends, it’s a killer.”

They are, however, having a wonderful time. So is wardrobe director Wolf, who sits in the front, just to keep check on the costumes. He also has to keep track of 487 complete costume changes during each performance--involving 1,633 pieces of costume each time--besides keeping the colors vibrant and showing cast newcomers how to “wear” the period clothes.

“We do four hours of prep before each show,” Wolf says. His staff of two assistants plus a “star” dresser for Jean Valjean and his three understudies, is also augmented locally by a crew of 14. “We give them one hour of prepared introduction,” he adds with a grin, “ ‘This is how it’s going to work, this is what you’ll encounter, expect this,’ and they’re shaking--and bam!--the music starts and we go. We don’t have any margin for error whatsoever.”

Wolf keeps the 36-member cast in the right clothes at the right moment, Egan makes sure their environment is the way it should be when they rush onstage and Cosette points their way at every corner. It looks like an easy job from an orchestra seat. But life on the barricades as “Les Miz” crisscrosses the country isn’t easy.

It’s that kind of show.

“Les Miserables” opens Tuesday at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Shows are at 8 p.m. daily, through July 20, with 2 p.m. matinees July 13,14, 17 and 20.