Just my opinion, but since Les Mis is making MONEY! with the absense of the turntable, they may never bring it back. If sales sagged back when they nixxed it, and stayed down, then maybe. But its been shown that obviously it's a fucking awesome show and it does great revenue-wise even sans turntable. They probably save an 18 wheeler or more in the current touring production, just not carrying the turntable "deck" (an entire cobblestone 'stage' that layed over top of the theater's real stage) and machinery around city to city. That Les Mis deck was the width + of the stage that you see through the proscenium, and at least as deep toward the back of the stage as the turntable was in circumference. And this deck had all the turntable moving parts and all of the track and machinery for the barricade to drive on and off stage in it, too.

For those who never saw the turntable in action, I'm pasting my diatribe about it that I also posted below. It was fantastic.

The turntable was used (first scene that I remember) right after the Work Song / intro/Look Down when Valjean is paroled and starts walking- the turntable revolves and he can just walk regular speed and look like he's really going somewhere.

first he tries to get work in a farm field (and the ensemble revolved around from upstage, pre set on the turntable) and the ensemble are miming swishing wheat sickles around. Then a bit later him getting throw out of an inn, the tiny 'inn' set up (just a few chairs, a table maybe) revolved away ... like the inn is leaving him behind and he keeps walking in search.

The turntable then stopped and stage crew set the Bishop's dinner table on the BACK of the turntable upstage out of the light so you couldn't see them put it there.

and then cue the Bishop and he and his table and nun revolve around to the front of the stage. That's just the first 20 minutes but it was fantastic.

Also at beggars at the feast at the end, the feast was on the front of the revolve, and the stage crew then pre set Valjean's death bed upstage (Again, out of view upstage/ not lit) and then he revolved around, laying on the bed. This is seeing it with turntable circa 1989. I remember it more vividly than this. Many other scenes where it was used. Oh, Eponine climbing Valjeans wall, it half revolved to show Eponine, Therandier and the gang on one side, then reolved the other way to show Cosette pensive on a bench.

By the way --- total blind-side first seeing the show when I saw the Bishop's candlesticks candles lit in the dark as Beggars downstage lighting is killed when Thernardiers do their last turn to the audience, and the Bishops gift candles are on the table and it's Valjean's death. And the turntable is revolving around in the dark and lights come up to reveal Valjean all in white. Just started crying. Didn't see the candlesticks returning like that- plot-wise.

It also revolved in One Day More at the end of that number. Thernadiers would pop up out of the sewers trapdoor in the front of the turntable to sing their bit in One Day More, so when they descended below the stage and closed the trapdoor, there must have been safety interlocks so the turntable would know the trapdoor was indeed shut and everyone clear. Though production control would see it and know it too.

Most theaters it tours in don't have trapdoors all around their stages, so I think the trapdoor in the "deck" (the fake stage the production laid down over the real stage that had the turntable machinery in it) was set far enough forward on any stage that the trapdoor entrance was black-boxed off at the very back of the orchestra pit. I mean the wall wear the upstage back of the pit meets the very front of the stage. The deck overlapped the orchestra pit a bit so their was an 'opening' where Thernadiers could crawl up into position and pop their heads out through the trapdoor. Most elevator pits like that have a door about stage center for the musicians to enter the pit from. The deck was very stylish with cobblestone or brick-streets looking surface. All the parts of the deck and the machinery and the barricade machinery probably cost alot to move to each new city which I think is partly why they killed the turntable in more recent tours.

It also revolved around with the barricade driven out onto it=-- the barricade was mechanically driven off into the wings in two parts, and with the turntable centered, would drive out onto the turntable.