This is no ordinary guest director, arriving to lead 72 Wake County schoolkids in a student edition of "Les Misérables," the musical based on Victor Hugo's fictional tale of 19th-century France. Mann is a star, the actor who originated the role of the relentless cop Javert in "Les Miz" on Broadway -- not to mention the beast in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and Rum Tum Tugger in "Cats."

Never mind that Mann began his career in Raleigh, acting and directing at Theatre in the Park and N.C. Theatre. He was a grown-up, a graduate of the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, when he did all that. This nervous bunch are just kids, as young as 8 years old. What will this pro think of their imperfect voices, their awkward stage presence, their barely developed acting skills?

They have little reason to fret. Mann isn't seeking perfection, and he isn't here to give a master class. At 56, with two Tony nominations and a dozen Broadway shows behind him, Mann has come to Raleigh to pass along some of the lessons he's learned since he first hit Broadway more than a quarter century ago.

And he's here to learn: Will working with children suit him after decades among primarily seasoned professionals? And will he suit the children?

Mann has one week with the cast before he heads back to New York, leaving assistant director Paul Orsett to carry out his vision. And the first lesson Mann wants to impart is that no matter how many plays you do, or how big your name is on a marquee, you need to start every project with the basics.

So on day one, hour one, Mann opts for "Les Miz" 101.

First, a question

Mann appears in sneakers and a Hawaiian shirt that hangs loosely over his slacks, his thick white hair already tousled. Yet he still looks every inch the star.

With a handsome face and a glint of mischief in his eyes, he's mesmerizing. And when he speaks, it's hard to look away, whether he's portraying the mad transvestite scientist Dr. Frank 'N' Furter in Broadway's "The Rocky Horror Show" or a shy, grief-stricken firefighter in the 9/11 drama "The Guys," or standing on dingy carpeting next to a beat-up piano in this dismal basement studio.

The first thing he does is drop a "Les Miz" pop quiz on the student actors seated in rows of folding chairs before him.

"Can you put into one sentence what it's about?" he asks.

A boy responds promptly. "Telling the tale of love, death and raunchy sex?" he says, drawing laughs from the tense crowd.

Other students are more earnest.

"It's about the shortcomings of human society as a whole," says one girl.

Mann smiles approvingly. "Now we're onto something," he says. "Go that way with it."

"I saw it as the path to God through suffering," says another.

Still more: "Lifelong burdens?" "Having hope despite hell on Earth?" "The extremes of the glorified and degraded?"

Mann looks pleased. These kids have clearly done some thinking -- or at least some Web surfing.

"Here's what it's about," he says. "The indomitability of the human spirit."

The kids are quiet -- possibly making mental notes to look up "indomitability."

"All there is in this play is the lofty notion of what heaven is," Mann continues. "All they can hope for is a better life in heaven, because all there is is hell."

Still quiet.

"You guys probably don't know what it's like to be hungry and cold," Mann says. "So how do you get at that?"

He thinks for a moment.

"How many of you feel like you want to run away from home?"

About 25 raise their hands.

"Why don't you?" he asks. They giggle and shrug.

Mann knows why. "The unknown is pretty scary."

His other students

"Kid Miz" is a bit of the unknown for Mann. "Miz," he knows. Directing kids, not so much.

He has done a couple of "Annie" gigs and worked with Triangle students performing a musical version of "Romeo and Juliet," which he helped adapt, in Cary. He also has a new role playing Mr. Mom to his 4- and 5-year old daughters while his wife, Broadway actress Charlotte d'Amboise, performs in "A Chorus Line."

As director of "The Lost Colony" in Manteo for four years, Mann helped college-age ensemble members hone their skills, just as he did when he performed in the historical drama in the 1970s. And last year, he started teaching musical theater at Western Carolina University. He has long-distance videoconferences with the students and visits periodically for master classes and to direct musicals. He and d'Amboise also taught a summer program there this year.

Mann says he likes working with young actors, who don't have the fat egos, bad attitudes or closed minds that can make some veteran actors downright irritating.

Teaching a new generation has been on his mind for some time now, he says. He had considered directing the previous "Kid Miz" production that Broadway Series South staged with Wake County Public Schools in 2002. But he was busy performing in "The Guys," first at Progress Energy Center's Fletcher Opera Theater, then in New York.

This year he got a second chance -- and a sudden one -- with "Kid Miz." The original director, Raleigh native Lauren Kennedy, signed on long enough to cast the show but then landed her fifth Broadway role in the forthcoming Red Clay Ramblers musical "Lone Star Love." Kennedy bowed out, and Mann -- fresh from his summer gig at Western Carolina -- stepped in.

He realized that a cast this large was sure to try his patience. And not every "Miz" kid is an aspiring actor. Some students signed up for kicks.

Mann also has to let go of any illusions of "Kid Miz" being anything like the Broadway production. Even putting sets, costumes and acting experience aside, there's no way most students could grasp the depth of pain and injustice that Hugo's characters felt.

"The emotional requirement is very high," Mann says, relaxing in the studio while the cast takes a lunch break. "The stakes are very high -- it's life and death. And to ask that of teenagers is preposterous to a degree."

But every day for teens can feel like a life-or-death struggle with extreme emotions, he says. "All you're asking them to do is take what they go through on a day in high school and apply it here. ... So it's no different in a way, and that was kind of an epiphany for me."

With only a week before he hands the production over to assistant director Orsett, Mann balances his time between character work and the dizzying task of blocking and choreographing. In some scenes most of the ensemble is on stage.

He works quickly, trying various movements and configurations and demonstrating things when the kids don't understand.

Sometimes he narrates what he wants, like a sports announcer with a play-by-play patter.

"Check his pants pocket -- that's it," he calls to a boy halfheartedly going through the motions of foraging for treasures among the dead and dying. The boy clicks into action.

"Check his teeth for gold," Mann says. "Another body! Aha! And he starts to get there, but uh-oh -- he wakes up."

Other times, Mann helps the youngsters mine their own experiences to get at the right emotions, as when the single mother Fantine is ostracized by vicious, gossipy co-workers and then fired.

"How many of you have ever had your feelings hurt by somebody?" he asks. Most raise their hands.

"How many of you have ever been mean to somebody?" he asks. The kids look at one another, waiting to see who'll be the first to admit it. "Even unintentionally," Mann adds. A few raise their hands.

That's what he wants to see: the moment of considering, recalling, admitting and realizing that even in the extreme world of "Les Miz," no character is unequivocably good or evil. He tells them to think about that as they perform, even in seemingly throwaway moments.

"It's never about just singing the songs," he says. "It's the difference between the light being off and the light being on."

Shaping the scenes

By Thursday afternoon, Mann's lessons are shaping up into powerful scenes. The factory workers are tense and indignant. The homeless people are venomous. And Emily Gardenhire's voice cries with the ache and betrayal single mother Fantine feels.

That's all Mann's doing, Emily says.

"You think you understand your character until he comes in and asks you all these questions, and you're like, 'I don't know.' So you have to figure out more."

D.J. Brinson, a senior at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School, says Mann is "da bomb."

"He's not the type of director that's high up there in the business and is like, 'I'm just going to do my job and walk away,'" D.J. says. "He actually talks into us and gets into our minds."

In a pep talk before their first full run-through, Mann assures them that they're unlikely to fail as long as they try.

"Make mistakes," he says. "There is no bad choice, no wrong choice. The only wrong choice is to do nothing."

As the intense week ends, Mann is confident that between his and Orsett's lesson plans -- and those of Victor Hugo -- the students will have learned something valuable by the time they take their final bows. And he has grown more certain of the best way to approach his role of directing them.

"If you treat kids like adults and human beings and talk up to them and make them take responsibility for mature action, then they will," he says. "It's going to serve them in life. Doing a show like this, we're saying, 'Look, we believe in you. We trust that you're going to come up with the goods.' And they do."