The Rep presents Les Miserables

LITTLE ROCK — Les Miserables 8 p.m. today-Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 12, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Sixth and Main streets, Little Rock Additional matinee: 2 p.m. Sept. 27 Performance for the hearing-impaired: 7 p.m.Wednesday Tickets: $40, $60 (501) 378-0405 or (866) 684-3737

The Arkansas Repertory Theatre is marking its 33rd season, which opens tonight, by taking on one of its largest production challenges ever.

Les Miserables, the third longest-running Broadway musical ever, has a cast of 29 actors, who require more than 500 costume pieces, including 43 men's coats, 50 men's vests, 31 dresses, 19 skirts, six hoop skirts, 58 men's hats, 40 wigs and 47 women's hats.

Robert Hupp, the Rep's producing artistic director, is directing the musical, an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel by the team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, who also collaborated on Miss Saigon, Martin Guerre and the recent The Pirate Queen.

"I saw the show on Broadway in 1987," Hupp says, "and I went back to see it three times. I'd never seen a musical so powerful and engaging. I bought the tape - and I'm not the kind of guy who listens to a lot of musical theater, as a general rule of thumb - and the music to Les Mis is in a class by itself, and it really drives the action forward.

"It's always been a musical that I've wanted to do, and that I've wanted the Rep to do. The rights for performing the show in regional theaters just became available. It was on Broadway for years, then it toured nationally for years, and was revived on Broadway a couple of years ago. So last year, when I was called and asked if we were interested in being among the first theaters, regionally, to be able to produce it, I jumped right on it."

The show will be the most expensive musical the Rep has ever undertaken, and the most ambitious, if not the largest in terms of cast members.

"To differentiate from other musicals," Hupp notes, "this is a sung-through musical.

It doesn't have any spoken dialogue; it's all sung. That introduces challenges in terms of how it's created, but we've been working on it since the late winter."

Les Mis is set not in the time of the French Revolution, which began in 1789but in 1815, when France had again become a monarchy after the French empire had risen and fallen with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

"When the book came out, it was a huge success," Hupp says. "It was even carried by the Confederate soldiers, particularly, during the Civil War. It elevated Victor Hugo to heroic status in France, and the book became a touchstone for the downtrodden everywhere. It put a spotlight on social conditions that people, particularly in the United States, might not have been aware of."

The story is of epic proportions, as it follows the plight of two men, one the pursuer and the other the pursued.

Douglas Webster plays Jean Valjean, the man who is pursued - for some three decades - by zealous policeman Javert, played by Christopher Carl. Valjean, the musical's primary character, has spent 19 years in prison, where he was sent for stealing a loaf of bread. He has been released after multiple escape attempts, but later breaks his parole, changes his identity and becomes the mayor of a small town and adopts Cosette, the daughter of Fantine.

Though Webster toured with Les Miserables, he was not part of the touring company that came to Little Rock's Robinson Center Music Hall years ago.

"This is my third production in three months," says Webster. "Every production I try something new. This production is the most intimate. More often than not, people have seen this show in a 2,000-seat theater.

The Rep's audience will be right on top of the action. The proximity will really be wonderful here.

"As I told my wife just this morning, it's sort of like I wish I could go back 20 years and start my career over with the knowledge I have now. This is like I have some knowledge of the show, I'm not saying I have all of the knowledge, but you get another pass at it, in a completely different production.

"As the character ages, so does my voice.

That's one of the fun things for me. I get to sing like a 40-year-old at one point and like a 70-year-old at a later time. It's not just slapping on makeup and slowing down, [it's] the figuring out of what it's like, getting older."

Webster, who recently did the show in Portland, Ore., and in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho,has been the interim director of opera theater at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

He joined the national tour of Les Miserables and later joined the Broadway cast. He is also considered the foremost interpreter of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, having led more than 20 productions as soloist, producer and stage director at venues that include Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and The Vatican.

Mike Accardo plays Thenardier, a smalltime thief who runs a small inn with Madame Thenardier, his unscrupulous wife, played by Catherine Smitko.

"These guys play - comic relief might be too strong a term - but they're the foils might be the best way to say it," Hupp explains, referring to the Thenardier couple. "I saw them in the Chicago production of the show, and they were gracious enough to come down."

"We take in the young Cosette and sort ofgive her a pretty hard time," says Smitko. "We take her in and lodge her, and her mother, Fantine, entrusts us with her care. We don't see ourselves as bad guys, just doing what it takes to survive, like everybody in the show. This play does kind of bring to light that good women can fall and be lifted back up again."

Accardo observes the parallels between conditions in the play and what things are like in 2008.

"A lot of people are one illness from living on the street and having nothing," he says. "Our characters, we don't see them as evil, but as opportunistic."

While set in France, the show is, of course, sung in English.

"And it's impeccable diction," Accardo points out. "The audience is not going to miss a word."

The story is the focus of the show, Hupp emphasizes.

"It really is great storytelling," he says. "While it's often defined as a big epic musical, the actual physical environment is very simple. Audiences often ask 'Will there be a turntable?' and 'Will there be a barricade?' and the answer to both those questions is 'Yes.' We're creating our own production; we're not copying other productions."

Multiple roles are required of most of the actors, since the show contains perhaps 100 characters.

Others in the cast are Maria Couch as Fantine, Chris Newell as Marius, Jeanine Pacheco as Cosette, Evan Shyer as Enjolras and Nina Sturtz as Eponine.

The cast also includes Kelsie Adkisson, Michael Bartholmey, Conly Basham, Dustin Beam, Susan Belcher, Luke Bridges, Hannah Bruce, Andrew Buck, Kyle Huey, MarkLudden, Jeremy Matthey, Laura Medford, Rick Qualls, Matthew Tatus, Pittman Ware and Tyler Whiteside.

Local children in the show are Shelby Kirby as Gavroche and Julia Landfair, Molly Russ and Gracie Stover sharing the roles of the young Cosette and Eponine.

The Rep's creative team for the show includes Rafael Colon Castanera, costume designerand production manager; Lynda J. Kwallek, properties designer; and Mo Jason Pruzin, sound designer and engineer.

The guest artistic designers are Robert Kovach, set designer; Robert Harper, choreographer; Michael Eddy, lighting designer; Chris Lomaka, production stage manager; Laura Claus, assistant stage manager; and D.C. Wright, fight choreographer and assistant director.