“Les Misérables” opens tonight

The acclaimed musical “Les Misérables” opens tonight at the Tower Theatre in Bend — news that, at this point, should come as a surprise to precisely no one.

Neither should the news that all eight performances of the Tony Award-winning show, based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, have sold out. Initially slated for a six-date run, a seventh performance was added in July, selling out in less than two weeks. When tickets to an eighth — and final — performance went on sale in August, they sold out in less than a week.

David Simpson, the man behind Shore Things Productions, which is producing “Les Miz,” knows more than a few people who did not manage to get tickets to the hottest show in town.

That’s not for lack of warning. Tickets for the initially planned performances went on sale some 10 months ago (a first for the Tower, by the way).

The sung-through musical, set in France during 1815 and 1832 and leading up to the June Rebellion, has been seen by some 65 million people in 42 countries, according to the Tower Theatre, and has even spawned an ardent base of followers who call themselves “Mizzies.”

“It is a show like no other. There is no other production that you can compare it to,” said Ray Solley, executive director of the Tower Theatre Foundation.

Unfortunately, the Tower doesn’t have “any more scheduling real estate to add shows,” he said. “These eight are the eight that will do. Plus, you’re dealing with 20 musicians and 35 cast members. They’ve already committed (nearly) a year of their lives to this, and they’ve carved out these days to do these shows. So it is very much a limited engagement.”

A Bend production of “Les Miz” would likely be a hot seller even if Simpson, director Mike Nowak and assistant director Brad Ruder (the two-man team that puts on the annual Bend Follies), music director Jason Stein and vocal director Nancy Engerbretson had not pulled out the stops. But they did. Auditions took place in November 2013, drawing some 160 hopeful actors and singers. Rehearsals began in January.

As Simpson previously told this reporter, “People are going to come having expectations. We hope we meet those expectations.”

If you have a ticket, congratulations!

If you’re left out in the cold wishing you had a ticket, condolences.

Here, in no particular order, is some of what you’ll be missing:

Central Oregon Community College music professor James Knox as glowering police inspector Javert. Knox’s never-glowering colleague Michael Gesme conducting the orchestra. Choreography by Michelle Mejaski, she of several past productions, including “The Producers.” Mutton-chopped music director Stein starring as the ex-convict Jean Valjean. Karen Sipes and a newly bearded, long-haired Don Delach providing comic relief as conniving innkeepers the Thenardiers. Mollie Tennant as the struggling mother of Cosette, played by Shantae Knorr, with Riley Anne Mulder as little Cosette.

“Les Miz” has it all: period costumes, revolution, romance, drama, redemption — you get the idea (if not necessarily a ticket).

According to the official site for “Les Misérables,” it all began as a 1980 concept album by French composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist Alain Boublil. English lyrics by journalist and lyricist Herbert Kretzmer came later.

With no shortage of talent and months of rehearsals behind them, the Bend cast is more than up to the task of singing the show’s famed tunes, including “I Dreamed a Dream,” “Beggars at the Feast,” “Do You Hear the People Sing,” (spoiler alert) “Valjean’s Death” and (ditto) “Fantine’s Death.”

Speaking at a rehearsal last week, Simpson said he figured early on that “Les Miz” “was going to be popular for a variety of reasons.”

After the initial six shows sold out, the other two sold out exponentially faster. The buzz “just seemed to build and build and build,” he said. “I told my wife today … ‘Honey, none of our friends can get tickets.’”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com