Actor Geoffrey Belliston grew up in North Phoenix and attended Desert Sage Elementary School, Hillcrest Middle School and Mountain Ridge High School. He now performs all over the country and has done voice-over work, but he often returns to Arizona to do shows. This time, he is getting a chance to play Inspector Javert in the Phoenix Theatre Company’s production of “Les Misérables.”
Phoenix Theatre Company will produce the award-winning musical through Sunday, Oct. 18.
It is one of the first stagings of the show following the closing of the national tour.
The acclaimed musical, which was crafted by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Jean-Marc Natel and Herbert Kretzmer, has been seen by more than 130 million people around the world and produced in 22 languages.
The original production opened on Broadway in March 1987 and ran for over 6,000 performances. It also won eight Tony Awards. The 2012 movie adaptation, which starred Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, won three Academy Awards.
The playwrights drew from Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel for the story.
The show follows Jean Valjean, a convict who escapes his bonds and tries to build a new life. He takes in Cosette, the daughter of Fatine, a single mother, factory worker and prostitute. Valjean is pursued for decades by Inspector Javert.
The story takes place in 19th-century France and highlights events of the June Rebellion, during which time people in France tried to rise up against the monarchy of Louis Philippe.
The show highlights themes such as hope, resilience and redemption. The score features recognizable songs such as “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” “Bring Him Home” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?”
The show has been directed and choreographed by Brendan Stackhouse, who served as resident director for the North American tour of “Les Misérables.”
Along with Belliston, the show stars Ethan Rogers as Jean Valjean, Monet Sabel as Fantine, Carmiña Monserrat as Cosette, Tre Moore as Cosette’s love interest Marius, Toby Yatso and Terey Summers as the greedy innkeepers the Thénardiers, Hahnna Christianson as the Thénardiers’ oldest daughter Éponine and Josh Pike as revolution leader Enjolras.
Rogers has done the national tours of “Les Misérables” and “Back to the Future: The Musical.”
Belliston has performed for local companies such as Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Broadway Theatre and Phoenix Theatre Company in shows such as “Scrooge!,” “An American in Paris,” “The Rocky Horror Show,” “Oliver!,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Shrek the Musical” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
He has also done a European tour of “Hair” and an off-Broadway show called “Foolerie the Musical” at the New York Musical Festival.
Belliston first became interested in acting in fifth grade after doing a show called “The Granny Awards,” in which he played the Big Bad Wolf.
“It was all the fairy tale characters, and everybody got awards except for the Big Bad Wolf. I wore this big, baggy costume my grandma and my mom made. The whole show, I got to improvise and try to steal these awards … I remember feeling that connection between the audience and us because I would move my hand, and you could see 500 people watching my hand move,” Belliston said.
He was very involved in theater in high school, doing school productions and serving as drama president and head tech. He also had a chance to direct and help in other areas. For “The Wizard of Oz,” he assisted with costuming.
“It was me, an aspiring stand-up comic at 17 playing the Cowardly Lion, in the back room with all the moms just serging. I end up serging like 200 poppies that we used in the show,” Belliston said.
The actor was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He turned down acting scholarships to go on a two-year mission to Des Moines, Iowa.
After Belliston graduated high school, he worked road construction in Washington state before doing his mission.
Following his mission, he moved back to Arizona and got his first professional contract with Phoenix Theatre’s Cookie Company, a children’s theater. He did a residency at Arizona Broadway Theatre, where he did over 30 shows, before moving to New York in 2009.
“The joke is you move to New York to learn how to sublet. We move to New York, and we’re auditioning for everything around the world. The auditions are out of New York. You get there to book something to leave again,” Belliston said.
Belliston has always enjoyed playing complicated villain roles like Javert. He said it is important to find the human side to these characters so that audiences can empathize with them.
Audiences get to see Javert and Jean Valjean’s relationship evolve over a 20-year period.
“We’re younger when you first see us and hungrier … With Javert, literally his whole thing is chasing Jean Valjean. He was a prisoner from the chain gang. He lets him go. He breaks his parole. He thinks he’s gone for 10 years. He’s worked his way up. He gets to be the top cop in Paris. He’s Inspector Javert … Through random hijinks, he gets back onto the chase,” Belliston said.
Belliston has been studying human behavior since he was young, when he and his grandma would go to the airport and people watch. He said that this has helped to inform his performances.
His experiences on his mission have also shaped how he views his character.
“I ran into quite a few people that I’ve been able to base Javert off of. In one of the songs, you hear, ‘I was born inside a jail. I was born with scum like you. I am from the gutter too!’ You come to find out that Javert’s mom was actually an old fortune teller, and his dad was a convict. They must have met in prison because Javert was born inside a prison cell. He then goes the exact 180-degree opposite of that and becomes a religious militant…. There’s a Mormon scripture that I’ve based it off of. It’s in ‘Doctrine and Covenants,’ which is one of those scriptures that Joseph Smith wrote. He said, ‘We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they gain a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.’ That’s exactly what Javert has done… In the end, he can’t handle that a convict is better than him, has a better moral background or a moral backbone,” Belliston said.
Belliston said that Javert is very much concerned with following laws as they are written.
The actor sings a song in the show called “Stars,” which is about Javert’s stringent beliefs in order and the law. For Belliston, who lost his sister 10 years ago and recently lost his last grandparent, the song has a different meaning.
“Once somebody passes, they’re with you in a different way, and I completely feel that. That’s one of my favorite parts of the show is getting to be able to connect with all of the people who have gone before,” Belliston said.
In the production, many of Javert’s songs are during intense moments.
“He’s very militant, so whenever he comes in, it is keeping order. Somebody did something. There’s some fight going on. He’s a bit of a jerk…One of my favorites is called ‘The Confrontation.’ It’s Javert versus Jean Valjean. It’s our first time seeing each other in years. There’s blood in the water. It’s two guys just going at it…. It’s like a fugue. We’re singing two different things but at the same time. It’s a round with the two of us,” Belliston said.
There are a number of scenes with fight choreography in the show. To prepare, actors had to do fight calls during rehearsals.
“There are so many physically aggressive moments. We had a full-time fight choreographer come on the team with us, helping us figure all this stuff out. ‘Les Mis’ is very gritty, and the physicality is connected with that,” Belliston said. “I hadn’t done fight choreography onstage in many, many years. This whole role, it’s pushing me in such a beautiful way.”
Belliston previously had to do broadsword fighting for a production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Les Misérables” is both physically and emotionally taxing for the actors.
“It’s a really big push for me as an artist to go to these places with him, to go to the darkness with him. In this religious way, I very much have. The LDS mission is a two-year military boot camp. It is very intense, 6:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. I left the church a few years after coming home from that mission. It wasn’t right for me. There’s still a lot of that moral foundation and that discipline that I still hold onto and cherish very much … Everything that happens in your life, the death, the happiness, the sadness, it all gets put into your brain and then regurgitated back out on stage,” Belliston said.
Belliston said when doing a show that is so intense, it is important to have a cast and creative team that is close-knit and is there for each other.
“Somebody told me years ago that when you’re doing a very dramatic show, the cast usually tends to be quite goofy and really fun offstage…. We have found that with ‘Les Mis’ because we often have to go to some really intense places. There’s a vulnerability and a trust that is there and has been built…We’ve had a very collaborative, supportive team. From day one, they set that up,” Belliston said.
During rehearsals Belliston suffered contusions and cracks in his ribs. His understudy stood in while he was in recovery.
“Other than the injuries, it’s been phenomenal. ‘Les Mis’ is one of the absolute dream shows… Most of us know the staged concert readings they had for the 10th anniversary and the 20th. It’s Colm Wilkinson and Philip Quast, who played Javert, up there at the microphones … You start rehearsing it, and it’s amazing. It’s a whole different show … I don’t use the word ‘epic’ often, but for ‘Les Mis,’ absolutely,” Belliston said.
Phoenix Theatre Company’s production of “Les Misérables”
WHEN: Through Sunday, Oct. 18, ASL/audio describe night Thursday, Aug. 6
WHERE: Dr. Stacie J. and Richard J. Stephenson Theatre, Phoenix Theatre Company, 1825 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix
COST: Tickets start at $59
INFO: phoenixtheatre.com