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The Costumes! The Cost! The Gross! What Every Les Miz Fanatic Needs to Know
By Kenneth Jones
18 May 2003
Looking to know how many revolutions the turntable in Broadway's Les Miz has made since 1987? This is the place for you.
For the occasion of the final performance of Broadway's Les Misérables May 18, the production office released facts about the smash staging.
Following a pre-Broadway engagement at The Kennedy Center in December 1986, Les Misérables began performances at The Broadway Theatre on Feb. 26, 1987 and opened on March 12, 1987. It moved to The Imperial Theatre on Oct. 17, 1990.
The New York production cost $4.5 million to mount, and opened with advance ticket sales of $11 million (the Broadway record up to that date).
Les Misérables won eight 1987 Tony Awards including Best Musical, five Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical, the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and two Grammy Awards (for the Broadway Cast Recording in 1988 and the Complete Symphonic Recording in 1991).
On Jan. 25, 2002, with performance No. 6,138, Les Misérables surpassed the legendary run of A Chorus Line to become the second longest running production in Broadway history. It is the longest running show to play Broadway's historic Imperial Theatre and since September 2000 has been the longest-running production playing on Broadway.
After 16 years and 6,680 performances, the New York production has been seen by 9.2 million people and grossed over $410 million.
415 actors have performed in the Broadway company, including: 15 Valjeans, 18 Javerts, 22 Fantines, 21 Eponines, 11 Cosettes, 14 Mariuses, 5 Thénardiers, 10 Madame Thénardiers, 11 Enjolrases, 42 Gavroches and 46 Young Cosettes.
There have been over 200,000 revolutions of the onstage turntable.
The Broadway production has used more than 338,000 pounds of dry ice for stage effects, 132,291 batteries for mics, 1,352,000 yards of thread for costume repairs, 748,800 Wet-Ones to remove "dirt" make-up and 6,680 loaves of bread.
1,633 people have worked on the show in various capacities and 210 people are currently (as of the final week) employed in direct association with the show.
Each performance used 392 costumes, consisting of 1,782 items and 31 wigs.
7 U.S. presidents have seen Les Miz: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.
Worldwide, Les Misérables has been seen by over 50 million people, with a total gross of over $2 billion. 53 professional companies have played over 37,000 performances in 38 countries, in 217 cities and in 21 different languages.
Les Miz has won over 50 major theatre awards and had 31 cast recordings. There are currently 12 productions playing around the world.
The life of the show continues to evolve with last year's historic release of Les Misérables, School Edition, which was the first time a show that was still running on Broadway, in the West End and around the world made its school rights available. Through the end of 2003, over 1,000 U.S. schools and 200,000 American students will have performed the show.
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