‘Miz’ Popularity Musical Remains Successful Around The Nation And Locally

This could be the textbook way to identify a show in danger of overexposure: Is it fast approaching the 60,000 attendance mark in little old Spokane, Wash.?

“Les Miserables” has already played Spokane twice before for 16 total performances. On Wednesday, it’s back for another eight-pack of shows at the Spokane Opera House. For any other production, the law of diminishing returns would have kicked in long ago.

But the usual rules don’t apply to “Les Miz.” The five evening performances are already nearly sold out, and the matinees are selling well, too. Only one show, the 2 p.m. matinee next Thursday, has big blocks of tickets remaining.

Why does “Les Miz” just keep packing ‘em in?

For one thing, it attracts a phenomenally high percentage of repeat viewings, people who have seen it two times, five times, 10 times, as many as 70 times. The “Les Miz” people estimate that half the audience for any given show has already seen it at least once.

For another thing, Richard Jay-Alexander considers it his mission in life to keep “Les Miz” feeling fresh after all of these years. Jay-Alexander is the associate director, which essentially means he directs the touring production and the Broadway production, now in its ninth year. The best way to keep it fresh is to keep bringing in new talent.

“My job, and my promise to Trevor Nunn and John Caird, the original directors, is that I will keep this show brimming with the best talent I can find to fill these parts,” said Jay-Alexander.

And when the show rolls in to Spokane, we’ll see plenty of hungry new talent.

“The Valjean is new, the Jauvert is new, Eponine, Marius, Cosette, everybody’s pretty new,” said Jay-Alexander. “The company has had a sort of rotation, not because anybody got fired, but because people left to do other things. So Spokane will seem incredibly fresh. The leads are just stunning.”

Even though the leads are new in their parts, they are not necessarily new to the company. Jay-Alexander says that in “Les Miz,” people graduate through the ranks.

‘When you cast people, you go, ‘Now, there’s a future Valjean, I’m going to bank on him,’ ” said Jay-Alexander.

Rob Evan will play Valjean, and Jay-Alexander says he will “break everybody’s heart.”

Robert Longo, who will play Jauvert here, has been one of the anonymous performers in the company for a long time. But Jay-Alexander had his eye on him as Jauvert from the start, and there are other people in the ensemble that he is looking at right now.

“There’s a guy in the company right now who I think will be one of my next Mariuses,” he said. “I won’t know until I see him in an understudy rehearsal in Seattle. But if you do your homework, there’s no such thing as being an understudy in ‘Les Miz.’ The understudies have to be of performing quality, so if people ever see understudies, they never have to worry because I’m cast so rich and deep.”

“Les Miz” is full of stories of instant stardom. Jay-Alexander found one young singer, Sarah Uriarte, in Sacramento, put her in the cast, and then sent her to Broadway as Eponine. Suddenly she got the lead in “Beauty and the Beast” and now she has the lead in “Carousel,” both on Broadway.

“That’s what’s so exciting to me, launching so many careers, so many fresh careers,” said Jay-Alexander. “It’s exciting watching my kids grow up and win Tonys.”

Dawn Younker, who will play Eponine in Spokane, is somewhat of a Cinderella story herself. Jay-Alexander found her in Washington, D.C. at a place called Toby’s Dinner Theater. He cast her in the company, and within a matter of weeks, she moved up to the role of Eponine when the previous Eponine went to Broadway.

“Talk about thrills, on her opening night in D.C. President Clinton brought Chelsea and his wife because it was Chelsea’s birthday,” said Jay-Alexander. “Can you imagine, on your first night as Eponine, the president of the U.S. is in the audience? She did great; she is great. You’ll see her.”

There are only two versions of “Les Miz” operating in the country right now, the Broadway version and this tour. Both got a shot in the arm from the televised concert version of the show on PBS earlier this year. Not only was it the most successful show in PBS fund-raising history, but it generated instant lines on Broadway and in D.C., where the tour was playing at the time.

You’d think it would work the other way around. People had just seen it for free. Why would they go rush out and buy tickets? “It made people want to see the whole thing again,” said Jay-Alexander. “It made them remember how much they loved it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos