Maybe he’ll be Marius

University Heights native an understudy in major ‘Les Miserables’ tour that’s at Playhouse Square

It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally a small sliver of paper falls out of the playbill you’ve just been handed as you take your seat at the theater. On it is the announcement that a character normally played by a particular performer will be played by someone else.

In the national tour of “Les Misérables” — the epic musical based on Victor Hugo’s novel about the Paris Uprising of 1823 — that someone could very well be Gabriel Sidney Brown during the show’s limited engaged at Playhouse Square.

Born and bred in University Heights and a 2016 graduate from Baldwin Wallace University’s musical theater program in Berea, Brown has been in the touring company’s ensemble and has served as a principal understudy since the show’s first performance in September 2017.

Brown plays Feuilly — one of the ill-fated revolutionary schoolboys known in Victor Hugo’s novel as Les Amis de l’ABC — and is one of three understudies for Marius, the show’s romantic lead, playing the character when the actor in the role is ill, injured or in need of a well-earned day off.

“I was auditioning for ‘Miss Saigon’ and apparently impressed the production team, who was also producing ‘Les Miz,’” recalls Brown by phone during the show’s fiveday engagement in North Charleston, South Carolina. prior to coming to Cleveland. “They pretty much fast-tracked me through the audition process, and then the tour began. It’s been an incredible ride.”

Brown has had the opportunity to perform as Marius a dozen times across the tour’s 400-plus performances — and only after three rehearsals of his scenes and one full rehearsal run of the show with the entire cast.

“I didn’t get to actually play the role until threeand-a-half months later,” he adds, sounding as astonished by the feat as it seems to an outsider. “Such is life on the road.”

Unlike most “drop ins,” where there is typically little advance notice, the actor playing Marius was kind enough to give Brown a heads-up of a personal day off so he could invite his parents to Seattle to see his debut performance in the role.

There has been no official notification that Brown will be playing Marius during the show’s three-week run in his hometown. But don’t be surprised to find that sliver of paper in your playbill when you arrive at the Connor Palace.

COURTESY OF PLAYHOUSE SQUARE University Heights native and Baldwin Wallace graduate Gabriel Sidney Brown is on the road with “Les Miserables.”

MATTHEW MURPHY The company of “Les Miserables” performs a number.