‘Les Miz’ Offers a Lifeline to a Battered Theater Industry

Right from the start, it is clear the production of “Les Misérables” unfolding in an amphitheater at the mouth of a Utah canyon is going to be distinctive.

It begins with prisoners busting rocks in an oppressively hot desert, dwarfed by 1,500-foot-high red-rock cliffs just behind them. Javert, the merciless officer who is the show’s deep-voiced villain, makes his entrance astride a tall black Clydesdale, its long tail flicking in the sand. There are live goats, blank-firing guns and, by the time Javert sings “Stars,” the wonder of dark sky, twinkling overhead.

It is so hot in southern Utah at this time of year that the three-hour show does not start until 8:45 p.m., about half of the 40 performers wear ice packs under their costumes and numerous patrons sport portable neck fans. Neither the temperature nor the occasional tarantula seem to be much of a deterrent. On a recent 102-degree day — it was only 95 degrees by curtain — 2,300 people showed up.

The folks who run the Tuacahn Center for the Arts, the largest nonprofit professional theater in Utah, chose to stage “Les Miz” this year because they love the show — the music, the message, the melodrama. But they also knew it would sell tickets. The production is tracking to be the highest-grossing in Tuacahn’s 31-year history.

A surge in productions of “Les Misérables” is unfolding across North America because of a rare confluence of opportunity and need. A long-running tour has just ended, making the show available for licensing by others. And many regional theaters are in difficult financial straits, creating hunger for titles likely to attract ticket buyers.

“It’s so popular and so well-loved that I think, from a business standpoint, it’s an instant moneymaker,” said Randal Keith, the veteran “Les Miz” actor playing Javert at Tuacahn after more than 2,900 performances as the protagonist, Jean Valjean, on tour and on Broadway. “People can see it 20 times and find something new.”

“Les Misérables,” based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, is an epic story, set against the backdrop of a brief anti-monarchist rebellion that was quashed in France in 1832.

The show, first produced in France, opened in London in 1985 and is still running there; the original Broadway production, which ran from 1987 to 2003 and won the best musical Tony Award, remains the sixth-longest running show in Broadway history. The musical has been performed in 57 countries and 22 languages and has been seen by over 150 million people. There was also a starry film adaptation in 2012.

The latest national tour — President Trump, a fan of the show, saw a performance at the Kennedy Center — ended in June. Music Theater International, the company that licenses “Les Miz,” says it has already given permission for 107 new productions, about half of which are at professional regional theaters.

“This is one of the most popular musicals ever, and the regional theaters, and the great amateur companies, need to produce this work,” said Cameron Mackintosh, the British megaproducer who has been overseeing the extensive global life of “Les Miz” since the 1980s, when he produced the first English language production in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company. “There’s a huge pent-up demand.”

Like most big Broadway musicals and plays, “Les Miz” severely restricts licensing while a commercial production is touring to prevent cannibalizing the audience. There are exceptions: “Les Miz” has long allowed student productions even when a tour is running.

Now the floodgates are open. This year, professional productions are scheduled not only in Utah, but also in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia (twice), Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Maryland. In New York, one production began on Aug. 12 at Hudson Valley Shakespeare and another starts Nov. 27 at Syracuse Stage.

“It’s certainly a big show, in terms of its cast size and its full and operatic orchestration, so it’s a big swing for nonprofit theaters,” said Davis McCallum, the artistic director of Hudson Valley Shakespeare. “But it also pulls a lot of people into the theater who might not otherwise be inclined to go, and as theaters make the case for our continuing relevance and excitement, ‘Les Miz’ makes that case strongly.”

Next year, there are many more productions scheduled, from Texas to Maine and from Florida to British Columbia. Mackintosh said he expected the show to return to New York City the following year, although he was not ready to share details other than to say it was not his production.

Many of the nonprofit theaters planning “Les Miz” productions say they have been waiting for years to develop their own takes on the material, which was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer.

“We’ve never done it because the rights have never been available to us,” said Jason Loewith, the artistic director of the Olney Theater Center in Maryland, which plans to stage the show for the first time this year.

Loewith said the show was not only a fan favorite, but also a bucket list show for many performers. “We had more than 400 local submissions from actors wanting to do this show — we had to turn people away from auditions — which tells me these are roles people are desperate to play, and they’ve never had a chance,” Loewith said.

Utah is a prime example of “Les Miz” fever. The Tuacahn Center for the Arts and its audience are familiar with the title — the theater had staged a less elaborate version in 2008 to great success — and the nonprofit’s administrators were confident in its ongoing appeal.

The theater runs three shows in repertory each year and expects to draw 360,000 patrons this season; its production of “Les Miz” started in May and runs through October.

The audience on the night this reporter attended included a woman in a 24601 T-shirt — that’s Jean Valjean’s prisoner number — and a man wearing a hat with the show’s Broadway logo. Suzanne Smith was there for the 14th time this season; she had been introduced to “Les Miz” at Tuacahn in 2008, saw the show about 15 times that season, and has since seen it in New York and in London. “Something stirred in my soul,” she said, “and I thought, ‘I’ve got to see it again. And again. And again.’”

Her love for the show has also nurtured her love for the theater — she brings her children and grandchildren, and she is now, with her husband, a major donor.

“I just love the act of kindness that was shown to Jean Valjean, and how it profoundly changed his life,” she said, “and I just thought, ‘That could still go on today.’”

Tuacahn, which is in Ivins, just northwest of St. George, started producing in 1995, and spent its first few years with a single show, “Utah,” about local history. But in 1999 it began staging its own productions of Broadway titles — which it deemed necessary for survival — and its resources, professionalism and audience have been growing since.

The theater was seeded with $30 million in gifts from Hyrum and Gail Smith; Hyrum Smith had founded one of the companies that became FranklinCovey. Gail Smith still remembers hiking through the canyon in the early 1990s and marveling at the acoustics of a natural amphitheater. She said the expected success of “Les Miz” would help ensure the theater’s continuity.

“I usually try to get a seat in Row H so I can turn around and see the people with tears in their eyes, or with joy and laughing and so happy,” she said. “And I say, ‘That’s it: You’re making people happy, you’re serving people, you’re teaching people values from the shows that they’re watching. That’s what’s important.”

The company’s annual budget is $26 million, up from $1.5 million two decades ago. It is now a major economic driver in the tourism-dependent region of southern Utah, home to Zion National Park.

Production costs, though, are up over 50 percent since the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s “Les Miz” production is costing Tuacahn about $4 million to stage, up from $1.5 million in 2008. The theater expects to sell about $6.5 million worth of tickets, which range from $36 to $142.

“Six years ago, we could pay our box office $10 an hour to start, and now, if you’re not starting at $15 or $16, they’ll go work at In-N-Out Burger,” said Kevin Smith, the theater’s chief executive and a nephew of Hyrum and Gail Smith.

About 90 percent of the theater’s revenue comes from patrons — through ticket sales, concessions and the gift shop — and 10 percent comes from philanthropy. Administrators are mindful of affordability concerns, which means they need to continually raise more from donors.

“What we have to do is find a way to serve our community without increasing our prices to the point that nobody wants to come,” said Jonathan O. Hafen, the chairman of the Tuacahn board.

Hafen said there were moments over the past few decades when he was not sure the theater would survive. But the theater is now stable — in better shape than many of its peers — and confident that “Les Miz” will strengthen its position.

“We have a great location, we have a committed group on our board, and people just love coming and seeing shows here, so I think we’re going to be fine,” said Hafen, whose grandfather once owned the land in Padre Canyon that is now the site of the theater. “But if we just kept doing the same thing the same way, we wouldn’t be fine — we’ve had to innovate, we’ve had to build out our development team, anticipating the cost increases to make sure we can be successful.”

The company focuses on family-friendly shows — a significant percentage of Utahns are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — so there are no performances on Sundays and the organization keeps a close eye on block and swearing in its scripts. Each season, the theater has had to cancel a handful of performances because of heavy rain, high winds or poor air quality from wildfire smoke.

Last year, the theater staged “Newsies,” “The Little Mermaid” and “The Wizard of Oz,” and sales were so-so. “Great shows, great productions, but it just didn’t sell like we were hoping,” said Gary Cahoon, the chief financial officer, “and we actually went backward a little bit.”

About 80 percent of the audience at Tuacahn is from Utah, and another 10 percent from Nevada; more than 30,000 people each season come from elsewhere in the United States and other countries.

“We have a lot people that love theater here,” said Scott S. Anderson, the producing artistic director. “We also have a lot of people who can’t afford to take trips to New York and see Broadway. And what we like to say is, ‘We’re bringing Broadway to you, in a place that is truly unbelievable.’”