Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 7, 1993 TAG: 9311060015
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COLUMBUS, OHIO LENGTH: Long
One that people will pay about $40 a pop to see this week when the touring production of the Broadway musical "Les Miserables" comes to the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium. The show runs Tuesday through Sunday.
Then there is the show behind the curtain.
The load-in: a two-day scramble to transform an empty theater into a portable taste of Broadway. And after the load-in: the orchestrated chaos that goes on backstage as the show goes off without a glitch onstage.
To outsiders, both shows are show business spectacles - telling glimpses into the size and the scope of a big-league musical.
But to insiders, it is all just another day at the office. nn
Everything starts with the telephone.
Boston fell through, so the tour needed a fill-in date. "Les Miserables" never goes dark, even for a week. The weekly overhead alone is $350,000.
The phones start ringing.
Finally, Roanoke gets the show, which has been touring nonstop for five years. It will be the musical's first time here.
More calls. Mike Egan, the production stage manager, gets on the phone to verify certain guarantees. The theater has to have two operational washers and dryers, hooked up and ready to spin. The orchestra pit has to be carpeted.
There also are all the lodging and travel arrangements that have to be made, and Egan flies into town at least once in advance to survey the theater.
When the full cast and crew of 90 arrives in a new city on a Monday to set up for a Tuesday night opening, there can't be any delays.
Last month, the tour stopped at the landmark Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. Like it has done a hundred times before - like it will repeat again in Roanoke beginning Monday - the company assembled what is probably the largest touring truck-and-bus production ever taken off Broadway and on the road.
In two days, the traveling crew of 19, plus 45 union stage hands hired locally, transformed the empty Ohio Theatre stage into the bleak cobblestone expanse that anchors the massive "Les Miserables" set.
Remarkably, the set duplicates the Broadway original, with nothing scaled down for the road.
Almost nothing. From the audience, the staging looks the same. That was the one major prerequisite that producer Cameron Mackintosh insisted on.
"He won't skimp on the quality," Egan said. What you get in New York is what you get in Columbus and Roanoke.
However, beneath the faux cobblestone, some changes had to be made on the production end. The Broadway set wasn't built to pack up and move every week. This one had to be mobile.
"The guts of it have been re-engineered so it can be put together and taken apart quickly," Egan said.
Still, "Les Miserables" requires a two day load-in, where most shows - "Cats," for example - can set up in a day.
It requires more than twice the number of local stage hands than "Cats" and moves in eight tractor trailers. "This is bigger than any tour that moves as fast as we do," Egan said.
"The Phantom of the Opera" is bigger. Its load-in time is as much as three weeks. But it doesn't move like "Les Miserables." "Phantom" stays in one city for months at a time.
"Les Miserables" is longer, though. The show runs 3\ hours. One crew member wore a T-shirt that read: "I Laughed. I Cried. It Was Longer Than Cats." nn
"Watch that pipe right above you," called out Kent Hasper to one of the local union workers. Hasper, an assistant carpenter, has been with the touring show since it hit the road in 1988.
"We're gonna go up on all four motors," he warned, as he punched a button to hoist a truss loaded with lighting and sound equipment above the stage. Two locals stood on top of the truss to clear any wires and ropes out of its way on the way up.
"I can't see the big picture here," Hasper called out.
He stopped the four motorized hoists used to suspend the massive structure. The two stage hands tell Hasper that all is clear.
"Cool."
The load-in is a hectic operation, complicated sometimes by the abilities of the local crew to learn fast and work faster.
Hasper said it can make for a harrowing two days. So much so, that when asked what was the worst part of his job, Hasper rolled his eyes. "Dealing with buttheads," he said.
Bigger cities often offer more experienced crews, but that's not always a plus. Egan explained that he would rather have a group of inexperienced locals willing to learn than a seasoned crew with an attitude.
"Everybody's got road horror stories of a chain gang showing up," he said.
This is not ordinary work, either. The set for "Les Miserables" doesn't amount to a few tables and chairs, maybe a tree or two and a building facade.
It includes multiple backdrops and a computerized, 32-foot revolving turntable that sweeps the actors and props in and out of the action. It also includes a two-story tall barricade that spins and flips and glides on and off the stage via a high-tech tracking system.
The transformation - from barren stage to all of this - is astounding. "That's why they invite the press," Egan said. nn
The elaborate set is only half the spectacle, however.
At the same time, there is a whole other sideline going on in readying the 1,633 costume pieces and 50-some wigs used in the show.
In Columbus, the wardrobe supervisor, Gigi Nelson, worried about the usual things: finding a good shoe repair shop and a dry cleaner that picks up and delivers.
These are Nelson's worries wherever the show plays.
She and Egan recalled the Pittsburgh incident of a few years back when $11,000 worth of costumes got sent to the dump instead of the cleaners. The story made the national news and still touches a nerve.
Egan said it wasn't as big a deal as the media made it out to be. Mostly, it just caused a distraction for people who went to the show trying to figure out which were the wrong costumes.
"They couldn't tell," Egan said. By curtain call, replacements already had arrived from New York. "We didn't have to buy anything at Kmart."
Such mishaps are rare.
"It's such clockwork now we know where all the pitfalls are," Nelson said. She worries more about getting her local costume dressers up to speed.
Like Egan, Nelson calls ahead to hire 14 people to help out for the show's six-day run. She schooled her Ohio crew first in the art of ironing: collars first, then the ruffles, cuffs and arms; use a pressing cloth for pants and always use steam.
It takes two people four hours a day each to properly press an evening's costumes, Nelson said. Plus, there is daily mending. "It's a lot of work to make them look ragged, but not too ragged."
The wigs need their share of attention as well.
Wigmaster Rich Echols explained that all of the major characters in "Les Miserables" have their own set of wigs, all custom-fitted. Each understudy also has a set of wigs.
Echols and an assistant wash and set the wigs daily. "They get all sweaty and hot," he said.
Lesser cast members are required in their contracts to grow their hair long. For men, that means pony-tail length. "We own their hair," Echols joked.
Also, tanning is prohibited. "Les Miserables" is set in 19th-century France, after all. "We don't want people to look like California sun bunnies," he said. nn
During the performance, the high drama onstage sharply contrasted with the routine behind the scenes.
One of the crew balanced her checkbook during much of the show. Another played a portable computer game, and a woman in the chorus sat reading Emily Post's "Weddings." She is getting married in the spring, she explained.
The actors rushed around some. But they were far from panicked. It was more like choreographed chaos, with lots of dressing and undressing.
Imagine the world's largest walk-in closet shared by a herd of Tasmanian devils.
There were a few shared water bottles - for soothing their singing voices. There was the sound of gargling and small talk.
For many of the cast and crew members, the show is the first time they see each other all day. So, there were the usual greetings and casual hellos - like punch-in time at any job.
Later, during intermission, Donn Cook, who plays the emotional lead role of Jean Valjean, munched on Fig Newtons.
In his wig, Cook looks a little like John Belushi's mad parody of Joe Cocker. Mike Egan kidded him about it.
"I heard Joe Cocker's doing the movie."
"Oh good," Cook replied in turn. "Maybe I can be his understudy."
Elsewhere, there was encouraging talk about the hotel bar. It would be staying open an hour later to better accommodate the cast and crew's late schedule. The show doesn't end until 11:30.
"Things are pretty routine," Egan said.
About the only thing different about this night was having a reporter around. "So, is it everything you always hoped it would be?" cracked one of the cast.
"Hi, I'm the guy under the cart," another cast member said. He played the part of a peasant who gets trapped under a runaway peddler's cart.
Dressed for another small part, he added, before dashing back onstage again: "I'm a different guy now."
Finally, the musical's finale - during which a singing angel appeared - brought the audience to its feet. The theater erupted with applause and cheers and bravos.
Another day, another standing ovation.
But here again, a crew member sported a T-shirt that seemed to keep the whole spectacle in context: "It's not over `til the dead lady sings."
by CNB