Lot666 said: "carlisle14 said: "It starts overhead, covered by sheets. The actors explain it. The direct the audience's attention to the chandelier and suddenly the chandelier sucks the covers inside itself as it begins other theatrics/
magic."
That's exactly how it was done in the previous "reimagined" tour.
"
Yeah, but this is an understandable change. The original production was more limited in terms of what venues it could go into due to the chandelier. The spaces had to be able to accommodate those pick points, and not all could. The simpler chandelier drop gets the show into more venues than previously possible.
Also worth noting: Les Miz, Phantom, Cats, and Miss Saigon were game changers for touring productions. Prior to these four shows, touring productions were almost always redesigned for the road. Cameron Macintosh took quite the gamble by insisting the full productions went out, limiting where they could play. This is why the first national tours (and sencond national tour for Pantom) of those productions had such lengthy runs. Eventually, they started scaling those tours back. The third national tour, which ran from 1992-2010 was indeed scaled down from the second national tour which ran from 1990-1998 and played the larger venues. Only mega-fans like you and I would notice the differences-fewer candles, smaller set pieces, different automation, etc., and, of course, Bjornson was still around to sign off on those changes.