By the numbers: ‘Miss Saigon’ tours the country with statue of Ho

Chi Minh and a partial helicopter

Joyce Scherer

There are 17 semi-trucks making their way to the Orange County

Performing Arts Center packed with such items as a 15-foot, 300-pound

statue of Ho Chi Minh, a partial Huey helicopter, a 1959 Cadillac replica

and 104 chain hoists for scenery storage. But lest we forget the 450

costumes, 95 sound speakers, nine miles of electric, automation and sound

cable, 435 lighting instruments and 1,600 pounds of dry ice used each

week to create fog.

And that is only a sampling of the inventory needed to create the

award-winning “Miss Saigon,” said production manager Mahlon Kruse, who

also listed 59 automated effects for scenery, 60 guns, 22 scene shifts

and 12 computers to run the performance.

In addition, the show boasts 43 cast members, 24 traveling staff and

crew and 18 orchestra members.

“It is the fastest-moving show of its size considering we set up the

whole thing over two days and take it down in nine hours,” said Kruse,

who has been with the production on and off since its 1991 premiere at the Broadway Theater in New York. The show made its 1989 world premiere

in London and has gone on to gross more than $1 billion worldwide with

more than 25 million people seeing the show. To date, it has garnered 27

international awards.

Kruse said today’s show has been customized to play shorter runs (two

weeks) and at smaller theaters, if needed, without compromising the

artistic elements of the production.

“The first national tour had long, long engagements and could take a

couple of weeks to move a show. Of course the cost of moving at that pace

was phenomenal but the show’s long run made up for that,” Kruse said. “It

took about four years to come up with best engineering ideas to keep the

quality of the show the same but move it faster. And since we can move on

a two-week schedule, it opened up whole new market to smaller theaters.”

Some of the engineering technology, Kruse said, utilizes “dead space in

the air,” by hoisting much of the scenery and equipment 35 feet above the

stage.

“And by pushing the whole set out to the audience over the orchestra

pit -- it allows us to play smaller theaters and still have the advantage

of 17 trucks of scenery,” he said.