The national touring company of "Les Miserables" has become a Utah theater phenomenon. Each day during this opening week, the Deseret News will take a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of producing the well-loved musical while managing personal lives.
They grew up (and one is still growing) in Salt Lake, Provo, Bountiful and Macomb, Ill. (a small town in the Nauvoo LDS Stake) -- but for a quartet of Utahns, "home" right now is on the road with the national touring company of "Les Miserables."The youngest of the group is Alison Fidel, 8, who attends Viewmont Elementary School in the Murray School District -- when she's not being tutored by the "Les Miz" company's traveling teacher/chaperone. The oldest is keyboardist Craig Casper of Bountiful, who'll turn 30 before the show closes its Salt Lake run on Dec. 5.
Somewhere in between, agewise, are former BYU students Mindy Smoot and Nancy Foster, who were roommates while performing in Orlando, Fla., and who both joined the "Les Miz" cast the same week (although they had auditioned separately -- Mindy in Salt Lake City and Nancy in Kansas City).
"We're sort of each other's support group," says Alison's mother, Melia Fidel, who was temporarily staying in a Homewood Suites apartment in Seattle at the time of the interview but was looking forward to being back home -- even just for three weeks -- with her husband, Steve, and their other two daughters and son.
Here's a brief look at how the four Utahns are adjusting to life as part of a Broadway musical touring company.
-- CRAIG CASPER says that being in "Les Miserables" has always been his goal.
"I saw it for the first time when I was a student at Bountiful High School. My dad had a business trip to New York City, and I saw it just a week after it won the Tony Award."
Just a few years before that, when he was 14, he and his family took a vacation trip to New York. "I said then, 'that's where I want to live.' "
Casper majored in piano at BYU, then served an LDS mission in Amsterdam. Shortly after returning home from his mission, he moved to New York.
"I worked for Delta Airlines for two years as a flight attendant on their Amsterdam flights -- because I could speak Dutch -- then I got a job with the national tour of 'City of Angels,' " Casper said. "Then a BYU friend of mine, Joanne Baker, who was chairman of the Gina Bachauer Competition, suggested I contact Tom Helm who had also studied with her and who was conducting the 'Les Miz' orchestra on Broadway.
"I took a deep breath, knocked on his door at the theater, and introduced myself. He invited me to watch the show, then I began filling in for the regular keyboard players. I played for the historic 10th anniversary show in 1997."
When he first moved to New York, Casper had a small, studio apartment right across the street from the Waldorf Astoria -- and a piano, but no bed. His dad later bought him a bed.
He has since moved into a larger apartment on the Upper West Side in a historic building where many celebrities lived at one time. His apartment was once part of a larger unit occupied years ago by the legendary Florenz Ziegfeld.
"It's on the 13th floor. We have lots of ghosts," he said. "Babe Ruth used to live two floors below. Caruso and Stravinski also lived there."
It's just a 15-minute walk to Times Square and just a few blocks from Lincoln Center.
"All kinds of actors and musicians live there," he said.
He's been playing keyboard with the touring company of "Les Miserables" since January.
Casper notes that if he was not traveling with the show, "I never would have spent Easter in Corpus Christy, Texas, or seen the fireworks at the White House, where the Clintons invited us on the Fourth of July."
-- ALISON FIDEL joined the cast about six months ago during an engagement at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Prior to that, she'd been seen on local stages as an orphan in "Annie" at the Villa Playhouse in Springville and part of the "Encore! Encore!" revue at the Grand, and as Gretel in "The Sound of Music" at the Grand.
Her favorite cities so far on the tour have been Washington, D.C., ("We got to see the fireworks at the White House") and Montreal. But she hated Hartford, Conn. ("It was boring").
Although she's on stage every performance, she alternates -- playing Young Cosette at some performances and Young Eponine on alternate dates.
"I like playing Cosette, because she sings 'Castle on a Cloud,' my favorite song; but I also like to play Eponine because I get to carry a doll on stage and stick out my tongue," Fidel said.
Adult actors say it's more fun being the villain, so it stands to reason that kids have more fun portraying a brat.
Alison's mother notes that children in the company are well protected. There is a tutor/chaperone who is back stage during performances. He escorts all the children to the dressing room and back. He also coordinates schoolwork with the youngsters' teachers.
Mrs. Fidel added that she hopes she doesn't become a "stage mother."
Children in "Les Miserables" have open-ended contracts, but when they're too tall or their voices change, they're replaced. The Fidels hope that, when that time comes for Alison, she can smoothly make the transition back into her home surroundings.
Steve and Melia have traded off taking care of Alison on the road, and one week Melia's mother took over the role of on-the-road parent.
-- MINDY SMOOT was part of the opening act for "Beauty and the Beast," a concert version of the show at MGM Studios in Orlando, Fla., which is part of the Walt DisneyWorld entertainment complex.
"I floated around quite a bit" there, she said.
The Provo native roomed with Nancy Foster when they were performing in Orlando.
"I first auditioned for 'Les Miserables' when I was 16, singing Fantine's 'I Dreamed a Dream' during an audition session in San Francisco. They told me to come back when I turned 18, but I was 19 when they held auditions in Salt Lake. I auditioned and got a job offer three months later," she said.
"We call this the 'See America tour.' We've been to all the cities on the recently published 'most livable cities' list and I was excited to see that Salt Lake City was No. 1," Smoot said. "No where else on the tour do tickets sell out as fast as they do in Utah. We're sold out now in Seattle, but only 40 percent had been sold before it opened. They just buy their tickets later."
Smoot is pleased to be with a production that espouses some of her religious beliefs, such as repentance and redemption. "This show touches people's lives and affects people for the better. We do 400 shows a year, but I'm always hearing something new. Every night there'll be some lines that pop out that I've never really noticed before."
-- NANCY FOSTER, like many young wives, is working and helping her husband get through school. But it's certainly not your standard "commuter" marriage.
"My husband, Wade, traveled with the show for 4 1/2 months this past spring and summer, but he's back in school this semester, studying communications at BYU and performing with the Young Ambassadors.
"We knew when we got married (Aug. 15, 1998, in the LDS Church's St. Louis Temple) that we might eventually have a situation like this. But I'm so blessed to have a supportive husband," she said.
"I'm not doing independent study like Mindy is, but I figure someday I'll go back and finish my BFA degree," Foster said.
Although there are always two performances on Sundays, Foster says the show does give her and Mindy, both LDS, the opportunity to do fellowship and missionary work. The big difficulty -- and Melia Fidel agreed -- is trying to find a local LDS Church ward with a sacrament meeting early enough so they can be back at the theater for a matinee.
"When my husband was here, he had a car, and he would scout around each city to find the nearest LDS church. Now Mindy has a car, but it's still hard,' Foster said.
"I think the whole spirit of the show is turning your life around," she said. "I always wonder, at the end of the show, if people are listening to the words. 'Do you hear the people sing? Lost in the valley of the night. It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light.' I can just imagine the Savior at the back of the auditorium."