Les Misérables: The Magic Hidden in the Dark - Hailey Langer

How much magic can come from hiding in the dark? Everybody loves a big, bright spectacle that pops, but what happens when you play with the opposite? When your attention is moved not from brightness, but rather because everything else is invisible. Les Misérables is on its North American tour and showed at the Orpheum in November of 2024. It is one of the most popular musicals ever produced, and there's a reason for it. 

This show has lasted so long because it endlessly excites us. People are afraid to be dramatic, today those things just become confused with being obnoxious. Les Misérables is so loved because it doesn’t do that. The difference is it carries significance, not mindless drama. It pulls you in and doesn’t let go. Even during Intermission, the house doesn’t go to half, the music starts and before you know it the lights are down and the show is on. So we keep going back for it, over and over, and it lives on.

This show uses very little actual lighting. Paule Constable, the lighting designer, saw it as a superpower of the dark. That superpower is responsible for many of its elements, including the projections, transitions, immersive feel, and overall beauty of the show.

It perfectly blends Matt Kinley’s projections in. In my experience you’ll find one of two things from projections. They’re either a crutch because the show has so many locations that a large set just isn’t reasonable, or they’re impossible to include because the cyclorama is hidden behind a massive unit set. When projections are used as a crutch they can stick out like a sore thumb. Les Misérables uses projections so delicately, giving the scenes an infinite level of depth, taking the show beyond the set. It’s the perfect level of balance where they boost the mood, sense of time, and location without screaming it at you.

Another benefit of the dim lighting is that it immerses you in the stage. You feel like you’re a part of the scene, not just watching it. The darkness is typically reserved for the audience, by including it with the stage, they are including you. Even in playful scenes, the colors may be a bit brighter, but the edges will always remain dark. It gives the whole stage a vignette, as if it’s all a part of one big painting.

There’s one last trick here, the flawless transitions. There are hardly any blackouts in this show. It messes with your mind in the perfect way and keeps you on the edge of your seat. As the scene continues an actor sneaks onstage and the audience is none the wiser. The scene ends, the lights shift. You’re expecting somebody to walk out from the wings, but instead you’re wondering when and how that actor even moved to their place. The answer is nothing more than a bit of dark and a simple distraction, that’s the beauty of it.

    When all is said and done, I would say I found Les Misérables very inspiring. It reminded me of my

goals in technical theater and what I dream to create. Seeing all of the tricks that were possible from that

one lighting choice and how it made all of the puzzle pieces fit together, it made my heart sing. All of that,

all at once, it will inspire you too.