As the opening night of “Les Misérables” approaches, excitement for the long-awaited musical builds amongst the entire cast and team. The musical’s opening night will be on April 23, and will conclude on April 25 with a total of four performances. Participants have been working hard for months now and are ready to see it all play out as they begin their final critiques and slowly put it all together.
Dan DeMarco, the director of “Les Misérables,” has enjoyed watching the entire musical slowly come together over the past few months and is excited to see it all come together on opening night.
“We’re just starting to put major technical elements together, not so much the lighting and sound, but on-stage elements, big set pieces,” DeMarco said. “We’re getting costumes on students today, so now it’s starting to look like what it’s going to look like opening night. You just really have to feel like, okay, we’ve got a real production now…I think we all work a little harder at this point, because we can see the goal in sight.”
For the past few weeks, the cast has had rehearsal from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day after school. Ellie Sahutske ’26, playing Fantine in the musical, has enjoyed every part of the process, from watching the younger kids run around to preparing for her final role.
“I hope that people who come from the community, who are not related or connected to students specifically, who are just wanting to see the show because they know the show or are wanting to support the school, will really enjoy it and not think it’s just okay,” Sahutske said. “I am hopeful that, since this is a show that is so iconic, people will come to it who usually wouldn’t, and they’ll really enjoy it.”
Behind the scenes, Sophia Carozza ’27, a stage manager, is hard at work making sure she knows what each scene looks like and is able to direct the stage crew on when and where to move pieces in the musical. During the show, she’ll be on a headset ready to communicate with everyone behind the scenes, keeping the musical running smoothly.
“Les Mis is a very tech-heavy show; it’s very hectic with how many set pieces we have to move on stage and how many cues there are, and a lot is going on,” Carozza said. “So I want to be able to make it run easily so that my stagehands can have fun while doing this.”
Opening night is getting closer and closer. And as the excitement builds and the final pieces start to come together, the cast and stage crew are working harder than ever to bring their vision to life.
“If you are a student or an adult who has avoided theater for whatever reason, I think this production, our version of it, the musical itself, is a great first step,” DeMarco said. “I think you’re going to see something that does a great deal theatrically for any production. So if you’ve never seen anything before. This is the time to make that step. I think this could really start to reveal what live theater can be.”
