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It\u2019s 90 minutes before curtain on the opening night of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. Actors are arriving, signing in by the stage door and heading to their dressing rooms. Crew members in cargo pants prepare scenery on stage, the costume department steams dresses and hairstylists comb wigs in a basement room backstage.<\/p>\n
Ken Davis, the tour\u2019s production stage manager, takes in the well-orchestrated chaos with a smile, gesturing at the massive props that occupy every possible nook and cranny in the wings.<\/p>\n
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Jennifer Thoele, assistant wardrobe supervisor, works backstage with wardrobe staff at the Pantages. There are more than 1,000 costumes in the show, which arrive on their own tractor trailer when the show tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe walked into an empty building two days ago,\u201d he says. \u201cWe did a show in San Francisco on Sunday night, and then we came here and started loading in, and now we\u2019re doing a show for the good folks in L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this is not just any opening night \u2014 it marks the 40th anniversary of the musical\u2019s premiere at London\u2019s Barbican Theater, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second-longest-running musical in the world. The L.A. cast has sent a celebratory video to the British cast commemorating the monumental milestone, and the mood behind the scenes before curtain is euphoric.<\/p>\n
\u201cAudiences are still clamoring to see this show after so many years \u2014 it\u2019s absolutely incredible,\u201d says Nick Cartell, who has played former convict Jean Valjean for seven years and in more than 1,500 performances. \u201cI\u2019m just honored to be a part of this legacy and to bring this message of resilience and survival of the human spirit to audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cartell is applying makeup in his dressing room for the top of the show, which includes a black eye, a bloody lip and plenty of dirt from being on the prison ship. Nick Rehberger, who has played the relentless Inspector Javert on tour for the past year, soon joins Cartell.<\/p>\n
The duo form the backbone of the musical\u2019s drama through the tension of Javert\u2019s relentless quest to capture Valjean, who has broken parole and \u2014 as a reformed man \u2014 taken custody of the orphan Cosette. The adaptation of Victor Hugo\u2019s 1862 novel is a real tearjerker, which is a huge part of its allure for devoted fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve wanted to play this part since I was 13 years old,\u201d Rehberger says. \u201cSo to get to do it now, with all that is happening in the \u2018Les Miz\u2019 universe, is very special and very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Nick Rehberger, who plays Javert, gets final touches on his hair and makeup backstage. Rehberger uses mascara to darken his beard and changes wigs multiple times as his character ages. <\/p>\n
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Stage manager Ken Davis points out the sign from Th\u00e9nardier\u2019s Inn backstage. The conniving barman cheats customers by pretending he was a war hero in the Battle of Waterloo.<\/p>\n
Rehberger takes out a tube of mascara and begins brushing it on his beard for color, smiling as he does so. He jokes that he just adds more \u201ccrudely drawn crayon lines and mascara beard\u201d to show his character aging throughout the course of the show. The effect from the audience\u2019s vantage point, though, is thoroughly convincing.<\/p>\n
The nearly century-old theater is stuffed to the rafters, quite literally, with set pieces, which hang from ropes and pulleys attached to the fly loft above the stage and wings. Look up and you might see a wagon filled with hay bales or a thick wooden staircase. Five of those staircases will eventually be fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the show\u2019s iconic barricade where the student revolutionaries fight and die in Act 2.<\/p>\n
The barricade is also where the actor who plays Fantine, Lindsay Heather Pearce, sits for a time when she becomes part of the ensemble after singing the heart-wrenching \u201cI Dreamed a Dream.\u201d The tradition, says Davis, dates all the way back to the show\u2019s original 1985 London run, when Broadway legend Patti LuPone played the role.<\/p>\n
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Lindsay Heather Pearce, who plays Fantine, receives flowers before the show. Her dressing room is the same one she used when she came to the Pantages on tour with \u201cMean Girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lindsay Heather Pearce signs in when she arrives at the stage door before opening night. Pearce lived in L.A. for 11 years, and performed at Rockwell Table & Stage, before moving to New York.<\/p>\n
Pearce is filled with joy and gratitude on this special night. After she signs in at the stage door, she\u2019s handed a flower bouquet sent by her agent and manager. In her dressing room, she notes that being at the Pantages is a kind of homecoming because she lived in L.A. for 11 years before moving to New York. She first saw \u201cLes Miz\u201d at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco in 2005 when she was 14.<\/p>\n
Almost everybody seems to have a formative connection to the iconic production. Assistant prop master Laura Rin saw the show at the Pantages in the early \u201990s when she was a on a high school field trip with her drama class. She\u2019s now been traveling with the show for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy home is with \u2018Les Miz,\u2019 \u201d Rin says.<\/p>\n
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Laura Rin, an assistant prop master, checks the shackles on the ship prop. Rin has been touring for years, but holds a special place in her heart for the Pantages, where she first saw \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d as a high school student in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n
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A ledger used as a prop backstage. The crew tries to make all the props as authentic as possible, and has written entries in this book in French.<\/p>\n
Rin says there are at least 100 props, but that number can run into the thousands if you count small items like pieces of currency.<\/p>\n
The show travels the country with 11 tractor trailers filled with equipment \u2014 one trailer is reserved just for costumes, of which there are more than 1,000. A section backstage is filled with racks of elaborate early 19th century gowns, jackets, trousers, corsets, petticoats, socks, shoes, hats, suits and more. Some members of the ensemble play multiple roles and might don up to 15 costumes throughout the course of the show, says Karissa Toutloff, head of wardrobe.<\/p>\n
Wig and hair supervisor Maddi Guidroz says her team maintains 120 wigs, and uses about 30 during the show.<\/p>\n
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Maddi Guidroz, head of the hair department, says there are at least 120 wigs maintained for the show and nearly 30 are used each night.<\/p>\n
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Wigs stand at the ready on a shelf in a basement room at the Pantages. \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d takes place in early 19th century and wigs are a big part of establishing that time period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first 40 minutes of the show, especially for the ensemble, it\u2019s like you\u2019re shot out of a cannon,\u201d says resident director Kyle Timson of the actors who are constantly exiting the stage and reentering in new garb.<\/p>\n
The magic of those quick changes is accomplished by the dressers who are busy stacking the costumes on chairs in reverse order, beginning with the top of Act 1.<\/p>\n
One of the only lulls in the costume department comes in the second act when Valjean sings the emotional \u201cBring Him Home.\u201d Toutloff says she often stops to watch from the wings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to finally see what you\u2019re actually working for back here,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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A variety of set pieces, including five staircases such as this one, are put together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the iconic barricade that the student revolutionaries use for their battle in Act 2.<\/p>\n
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Stage manager Ken Davis reviews the show\u2019s 400-page score. During the show, Davis calls cues using musical notes as his guide.<\/p>\n
Davis is a bit like a backstage conductor, making sure that all of the individual teams \u2014 lighting, carpenters, stage hands and more \u2014 work as a unified whole so that everything that happens onstage appears seamless. He is stationed at his desk throughout the three-hour run, calling cues based on musical notes from a nearly 400-page score.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe choreography back here is more intense in a way than the choreography on stage,\u201d Davis says. \u201cBecause we have 40-some folks in the cast running around with another 25 or so folks in the crew \u2014 and also all this stuff happening \u2014 and it\u2019s in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thirty minutes until curtain, that darkness buzzes with precise, hive-like activity. The orchestra warms up \u2014 there is the toot of a horn, the sound of strings. The audience begins to trickle in and the sound of excited chatter joins the errant notes. Soon, Cartell will step onstage and take his place on the convict\u2019s boat, and 40 years of theater history will move into the future.<\/p>\n
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Theatergoers gather in the lobby of the Pantages before opening night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> It\u2019s 90 minutes before curtain on the opening night of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d at the Hollywood Pantages…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":299887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[4746,18046,40226,1582,276,152665,71986,152669,152670,152668,2961,152666,224,5337,60448,152667,6475,5996,4370,152664],"class_list":{"0":"post-299886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-act","9":"tag-actor","10":"tag-audience","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-costume-department","14":"tag-curtain","15":"tag-dressing-room","16":"tag-good-folk","17":"tag-ken-davis","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-les-miz","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-many-year","23":"tag-nick-cartell","24":"tag-night","25":"tag-part","26":"tag-show","27":"tag-stage-door"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115366835221206511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}