The last time Nick Cartell played Jean Valjean in the national tour of “Les Misérables,” his wife was pregnant and the tour ended due to the COVID pandemic. When the tour was relaunched in 2022, he was asked to play the same role — only this time he would be traveling with his wife and child. “It’s been a learning curve — especially for the first few months of the tour,” Cartell said in a recent phone call while performing in Old Montreal.
“This is such a physical and demanding role, and I need sleep. So, for example, if we stay at an Airbnb, we get two bedrooms so I can get sleep.” Cartell said his 4-year-old daughter, Sullivan, is a “really fantastic traveler” and that “as long as we have a sound machine and we bring along some of her toys, we’re OK.
” ”Les Misérables” is at the Citizens Bank Opera House through Aug. 25. Cartell, 45, who has played this role on tour more than 1,000 times, said that he is finding a shift in audiences post-pandemic.
“They are craving a show like this and recognize pieces of themselves in it,” said Cartell, who in addition to performing in national tours has been in three Broadway shows, worked in Japan on a Disney contract, and in July released the solo album “A Thousand Spotlights.” “So many people are fighting to make their [lives] and this world better, fighting because they want their voices to be heard. .
.. This show resonates on so many levels now more than ever.
” Cartell, a.k.a.
Prisoner 2.