ACT II

Enter The Barricade! I have to include one picture of my awesome crew in action. They assembled 3 huge barricade wagons during the 15 seconds of "bridge music" provided...in full view of the audience! The stagehands wore period beggar costumes, by the way. Center in this photo, you can see the hustle by a Senior assistant stage manager. I think she is on the ball enough to pursue stage management in college.

Barricade   I made the barricade one evening out of crap from prop storage. Look near the top and you'll see an old desk from "Deathtrap" and a door from "Noises Off". (I joked with the crew that after strike we would, "just burn the whole darn thing as a homecoming bonfire!")   It was the most fun thing to build for this show.

Eponine A nice photo of Eponine's return to the barricade to see Marius. Lighting designers: Notice again here the effective light-blue sidelight from the offstage Genie Lift followspots. It draws focus to the actors with a nice halo of light, without casting on the set behind them like front followspots would. Trivia: The interesting "wooden grate" ramp behind her is actually a "pirate ship's hatch" from a professional production of "Bloody Blackbeard" the musical! I thought it looked so cool I just had to find a place for it on the set somewhere!

First to Fall Wow, I hope we get to use this photo on the archival poster! Very cool.   A somber moment at Eponine's death.   By the way, in this photo you can get a good look at my 16' tall "city flats" across the back wall. Just two weeks earlier these flats were used in a professional production of "Night of the Iguana"!   Yes Paris may not look much like the coast of Mexico, but these flats were just too cool to pass up!  I think these walls worked really well for "Les Mis".

Calm Before the Storm A dramatic solo as the students sleep. The director said this was her favorite light cue. Try to imagine the haze in the air, flowing right to left upstage, through all that blue backlight.   I used an amber pool (Lux 21) to simulate "campfire" illumination down-left by Valjean; then a blue-green wash of break-up gobos center on those sleeping people; then some Lux 383 nighttime blue from beyond the barricade. This song is the show's quiet, lump-in-the-throat solo, before all hell breaks loose...

Here's a professional photo of that same scene.   The blue backlight is just too cool! You can see why I took the trouble to move all 24 of my 1000 watt Sky Cyc floods from the 4th electric down to the booms hidden inside the windows and doors of the city flats. That Roscolux 383 is just "plum sexy" coming through all the hazer fog behind that barricade!

Ammo A sniper hits that kid down-left as he collects ammunition. The gunshot sound effects were done live using an offstage starter pistol from the track team. The dead soldiers are stagehands in costume.

Here's a better professional picture of that scene. The students watch in horror as the wounded kid struggles in the open. Set Designers: Notice here the 2' gap between the barricade and the giant staircases on either side. This is intentional. I did it as an artistic compromise for the sake of safety. There were "dead kids" laying all over that barricade and I feared that an actor would loose an arm, or head, as the turntable spun past those stationary staircases at 100% speed. So I forgave those gaps in my set...in order to sleep well at night.

The Sentries Here's another good shot of the barricade scene. Javert is tied up stage-left. But notice how I used the two staircases from the bridge scene in Act I to complete the look of the barricade. We put two sentry guards up there. The tricky illusion for them was to slowly aim their guns towards the audience as the turntable rotated between them!

Forgiven Valjean releases Javert in an important thematic moment. Notice the nice effect from the hazer and Lux 383 blue gel upstage! Trivia: See that open-top barrel that we used to hold all our muskets? Well that was previously seen full of brooms in Vandergelder's store in "Hello, Dolly!" The white fence behind the red flag was from "Picnic", and hemp rope used to tie up Javert was once part of the ship in "HMS Pinafore"! Yes, I'm Mr. Recycle around here...

Rotation The turntable is in mid-rotation here for the final conflict. To simulate battle, I used a Rosco Fog machine upstage; the "battle sound effects" from the CD provided; and the light board operator manually flash several PAR cans that I hung on light trees inside the windows of the "city flats" upstage. Yes, aiming lights at the audience is generally a "no-no", but sorry, this scene, and this show, scream out for it...!

The Survivors The turntable rotates continually during the battle scenes as the actors continue to fire their guns. Shown here, the smoke settles and the students all die...as Valjean drags Marius off the turntable toward the sewer.

The Escape My down-stage black scrim slowly flies in as the barricade full of dead kids continues to slowly rotate in the red backlight. A dramatic moment. Valjean drags Marius to the down-right trapdoor. Meanwhile, the crew quickly and quietly strikes the 3 barricade wagons...under the cover of canned sound effects of "sewer dripping", (on the SF/X CD provided with the School Edition scripts).

Manhole Valjean drops him in the hole. Notice the chuck securing the wagon on the spinning turntable. I added this chuck as a safety precaution before Final Dress for piece of mind...to prevent the possibility of the barricade shifting off the turntable at full speed. (Traditional wagon locks would not work here). The chuck and the casters are not painted...but I didn't fret about it...they were 30 feet from the audience and with so much going on, even I didn't notice them!

Robber Thenardier robs the dead in the sewers. The audience is at least 20 feet away...hopefully far enough that they didn't notice the sneakers on my stagehand playing the "dead body". Totally forgivable, I feel, considering just seconds earlier he was rapidly striking a heavy barricade wagon!

The Sewers For years I've used these old Rosco "Les Mis" grate gobos in a number of other shows. FINALLY I get to use them in Les Mis!   The turntable is used once again now as Valjean carries Marius to safety.

Javert's Angst The 150 pound steel bridge flies to the floor and Javert is isolated in a pool of light to give the illusion that he is once again singing from the top of the two previous staircases. This sets up the next theatrical trick...

Suicide! Here is an action photo of Javert's death scene. The split second after he jumps: my fly crew pulls the bridge out - the turntable rotates - and the lights bump to a motorized gobo rotator with a spiral gobo. It looks like he is falling...in a Hitchcockesque style, that is. On opening night this cue got a combined "gasp" from the audience...but on following nights it got a hardy applause break. (Frankly, I didn't hope for this, because applauding for an effect constitutes a momentary lapse in the suspension of disbelief, in my book).

The Pivotal Moment My turntable operator, (who is hidden in a cubbyhole within the upstage wall of flats), cranks up the turntable to 100% speed as Javert "goes down the drain", as I call it.

"Turning..." The girls immediately rotate onto the stage in one of the few scenes where I used much color in the lighting. It is a very somber and abstract moment.

Alone As Marius sings his haunting solo at the street cafe, he rapidly rotates past ghostly comrades from the barricade battle.

A Little Levity An upbeat moment near the end of the show is the wedding scene.   Our Thenardiers return in foppish costumes to lighten the mood, and ultimately, to give Marius the ring from the sewers. (Costumers: Notice the dresses of the party guests...we altered old bridesmaids dresses that we priviously used in a production of Smile! several years ago).

The Wedding This was the only time I used my stock white cyclorama. I broke up the plainness of it with a border swag of white scrim fabric.   Lighting designers: notice the artsy-fartsy backlight "doorway" effects on the cyc. I simply used my red boom-mounted Sky Cyc floodlights to cast doorway shadows from my city flats! (By the way, I took this pic from the balcony, so that is the sound board in the foreground).

Blackout! The second of only two blackouts in the entire musical comes at the end of this comical exit by the Thenardiers. And this is only the second time I go with no color from the Super Trouper followspot as well. (The other time was at the top of the wedding scene when the emcee introduces the Thenardiers). The rest of the show I go with a muted blue-green gel in the Trouper.

Epilogue Another favorite light cue is Fontine's ghost. I had a typical amber down-pool on Valjean's desk as he reads a letter. And once again, my backstage Genie lift followspots used a light-blue gel to hit her in such a way that she appears to be "floating" here.

Finale After Valjean dies, all the dead people slowly appear behind the upstage black scrim. Then we slowly bring up all the blue and white 1000 watt floods from the back wall. Yes, in any other show I would be punishing the audience with these, but in this particular case, it creates abstract silhouettes, not unlike the final scene in the movie "Ghost".

Ramping it up The scrim flies and the cast slowly moves downstage. As the music builds in intensity, all the lights slowly build in a series of 40 second follow-cues.

Powerful Finish All 48 voices ring the rafters and the main drape falls. Before it hits the floor, they get a standing ovation - every night! (And like the pros they are, they always refrained from doing that tacky cheer from behind the drape, which has always been one of my pet peeves).

Regarding the excellent spiral staircase that I borrow for this production, please refer to the new forum thread called "Spiral Staircase" for pictures and description:  http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3708