Long runs.... Do audiences get short-changed?

Is saying the same lines for two hours a show, eight times a week, really that boring? I'll take it every time over most day jobs. And aren't we constantly being told by actors that every performance, every audience, is different?

And even regardless of whether it's boring or not, I'm sure many of us in our jobs are required to do the same thing every day, and to the same standard, so why should theatre performers be any different?  Yes, of course there will be days when someone's under the weather or has something else in their personal life on their mind that slightly affects the level of their performance, but as a general rule the performers are hired to give the same performance 8 shows a week, so they should all be of roughly the same standard.  And that's regardless of the length of the run as well.

Indeed, I am reminded of Luke Evans saying 'don't go to matinees' on the Graham Norton show. That really wound me up!

The short answer to the thread question is ..... yes!

That was a wacky time back in 1996 and they actually had to bring in the touring cast for a bit and cancel some performances of the tour while they rehearsed all the new folks. Here's a story about one of the ensemble members and other details of the firings:
www.nytimes.com/1996/10/30/theater/from-les-miserables-to-just-plain-miserable.html

The best performance of Phantom that I ever saw -- other than closing night in San Francisco (of the sit-down) and one wild night in Vegas -- was a random matinee performance on Broadway that I went to in 2007. No anniversary; no one's first or last show. Just a really solid, fantastic performance by everyone. It felt so fresh and like a newly opened show.

I don't think audiences necessarily always get short-changed during a long run. A lot of it has to do with resident directors doing their job. And maybe the head honcho showing up as a surprise once in a while. The mass firing at Les Miz in 1996 hasn't had an equivalent since, I'm pretty sure. I wonder if that was a big teaching moment.

So this guy was working solidly in Les Mis for 9 years, got fired because he was phoning in his performances, got $25,000 compo from Cam Mack and then went crying back to his acting students saying they had to be crazy to get into acting?

I remember Cam Mack saying at the time of the mass sacking that most of the cast looked too old to be playing young students, which was probably true if they'd all been in it for that long. However, the original London cast featured quite a "mature" group who met their ends at the barricades- David Burt's Enjolras was 32!

But Blood Brothers asks you to suspend your disbelief from the off. The "children" have always been played by adults, like in Blue Remembered Hills, and it works. Les Miserables, on the other hand, was asking us to take "mature students" to a different level! 

However the twins both die mid 20s and the bloke playing the posh one on the most recent tour was 56!!!!!!

Apart from sound upgrades, there likely nowt that can be done to change costumes and sets without altering the show and I imagine once the show is a cash cow, most producers don't want to spend extra money on a show unless it's going to massively improve the show. Lion King IIRC has been tweaked over the years as have Wicked and Les Mis, Wicked made changes in almost every production which were incorporated into the other productions.

I think you will have a much worse time seeing an Australian Production of a show. Les Mis was in excellent shape when I saw it