‘Les Miserables’ Crew Lauded As ‘Best’ Yet

By Larissa Lytwyn

It has not been an easy year for the drama department at Newtown High School.

Last spring’s budget difficulties drove the Board of Education to charge a $40 fee for every extracurricular activity. The cost for participating in sports also doubled.

Last fall, many Newtown High School students, their families, and even some faculty members claimed they had never been informed of the fees. After much discourse, a $40 flat fee was orchestrated for students to participate in all extracurricular activities.

By this time it had reached this conclusion, the “pay-to-participate” debate had severely delayed production for both Newtown High’s fall play, Noises Off and its much-lauded spring musical Les Miserables.

“Usually, our [student comprised] technology crew design and build the sets for our productions,” explained drama advisor Tom Swetts. “But our usual 12-week schedule was cut to eight.”

For the first time, a professional set designer, Andrew Knapp, was hired to design the Les Miserables set.

The set itself, said Mr Swetts, was pretty simple, consisting of just a few key pieces, most notably a crowning European-style arch.

There were, however, many details, including the construction of special flooring that allowed actors to ascend quickly to the stage between scenes.

Lighting head Brian Tenney also detailed the complexity of utilizing well over 200 pieces of lighting, from spotlights to the piercing bursts of white that appeared during battle scenes.

“There were actually too many lights,” he said, laughing.

In addition, the crew employed a fog and haze machine.

“The fog machine produced a bit thicker [smoke],” explained technical director Dan Amodeo. “The haze machine was more misty.”

Costumes were supplied largely by the department’s already generous-sized cache of props. Parents, eager to assist their children with the school’s largest production yet, supplied additional accessories.

At the encouragement of director Sabrina Post, the crew donned costumes themselves — complete with laced bonnets and soot-smeared faces.

Mr Swetts said that the Les Miserables crew was the best he’d had in his 35 years of teaching.

“The crew members have a tremendous respect for one another,” he said. “Age and experience doesn’t have as much to do with professionalism as attitude.”

After building the set for two months, taking it down took three days.

“It was kind of sad,” said Dan.

But assistant technical director Sarah Copeland disagreed. “It was great!” she crowed, spurring laughter from her fellow crew.

Paul Murphy said the Les Miserables set had been the first he had worked on. “This was the first time my schedule worked out to give me the time to be involved in it,” he said. He described the crew as very “accepting.”

“It’s like a big family,” he said.

Carly Filler and Emily Fiore, also involved in crew for the first time, agreed.

“It’s been a good experience,” said Emily.

Ironically, noted crewmember Ethan Reed, the delay — causing much of the construction to be done amid midterm exams — actually drew the cast closer together.

The schedule was more intense, with the crew meeting four or five nights a week for several hours.

“Somehow,” said Sarah, “it all came together.”

Mr Swetts noted that a lot of the crewmembers were sophomores and juniors, giving them the opportunity to continue working on future productions.

But right now, he said, smiling, they were planning to coast through the rest of the school year — until next fall, of course.