In New York City, the Barrow Street Theatre production of Sweeney Todd (running until at least Dec. 31, 2017) truly extends beyond the normalcy of the fourth wall. More than an immersive experience — cozying theatergoers in Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop next to the Demon Barber himself — the audience gets fed, too. Luckily […]
Read MoreSondheim Times Four in California
You would think that at some point in its evolution, a theater company devoted to producing works whose themes concern LGBT issues and whose playwrights represent the LGBT community, would get around to Sondheim. But truth be told, Theatre Out, a small storefront theater company in California’s Orange County, had more than a decade under […]
Read MoreBrilliant Stuff: Interview with Len Cariou, the original Sweeney Todd
Len Cariou’s brilliant career has had at least three acts. His first act was onstage in his native Canada and at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, primarily in classical roles. In his third act, he’s a television star as NYPD family patriarch Henry Reagan on the CBS series Blue Bloods (2010-present). But many of […]
Read MoreMiscast in Canada
The Stratford Festival in Ontario is one of North America’s preeminent theater companies. Producing a rolling repertory of more than a dozen plays and musicals from April through November in four theaters, the festival has earned a reputation for attracting some of the world’s most renowned actors, directors and designers who produce theater that regularly […]
Read MoreSweeney Todd was “in between” at Glimmerglass
So is it a musical or an opera? One might have expected Sweeney Todd at the Glimmerglass Festival to come down firmly on the side of the latter. But, to borrow a thought from Into the Woods, this summer’s production lived in between. Glimmerglass, the summer opera festival in Cooperstown, New York, presented 12 performances […]
Read MoreOpera or Musical? Sondheim made Sweeney to scare an audience
The big revelation instantly splashed across the media was that Stephen Sondheim’s new musical is to have its premiere Off Broadway at the Public Theater in late 2017 — “ if I can finish the score in time.” But in an onstage conversation at Glimmerglass Opera on July 30, Sondheim made what may be an […]
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