The sound system decided to revolt on Saturday, April 27th, during the closing night of Verrado High School’s production of Les Misérables the sound system completely broke and the cast had to do the last 2 remaining songs as an acapella. Throughout the night, the sound system had been acting up, with the mics cutting out multiple times during the performance.

During a performance, it’s not uncommon to have audio issues, however, it is unheard of to have the entire sound system not work. No one in the cast or crew was shocked it crashed, but still, it did cause a lot of fear on stage and backstage. However, the talented cast and crew did not let that stop them from continuing with the show.

Fern Loza, theater head of lighting who was in the sound booth when it broke says “Everyone was panicking in the sound booth. I remember everyone just looking at each other in shock when our sound tech had to shut everything off. We were going to stop the show but our microphones were off too, so we couldn’t make that announcement. Fern also says, “I’m so grateful that the cast and crew kept going after the system broke, the Acapella version was beautiful and very powerful to watch.”

Many cast and crew members have different theories on what happened, as many things could contribute to what happened.

Bryan Weaver, who played Monsieur Thénardier, says “I believe the sound system blew out during our final performance due to the speakers that were playing the music being too loud and our hanging mics picking up the sound causing the system to blow.”

Les Mis as a musical is incredibly emotional as it covers many morbid topics, while also covering positive topics like hope and loving other people deeply, because of this it has impacted the entirety of the cast and crew that spent so much time working on it, so it was do you hear the people sing?

Despite what happened Verrado’s amazing cast and crew managed to still put on a flawless performance. The ending was almost more impactful as an acapella since you could hear the voices of the cast as they gave it their all to make up for the lack of instrumentals and background music.

While Saturday did not go how anyone expected it to, it truly gave the cast, crew, and audience a very memorable experience and allowed them to truly show how well Verrado’s theater program excels.