Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street This musical is based on a 1973 play by Christopher Bond before becoming a 1979 musical with the music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Today’s musical was directed by Sasha Gerritson, orchestra constructed by R. Shayne Cofer, and choreographed by Andrew Waters. The musical tells a story of Sweeney Todd, aka Benjamin Barker, who returns to 19th century London after 15 years’ transportation on made up charges. He seeks revenge on the judge that transported after he learns his wife poisoned herself after being sexually defiled by Judge Turpin. He then opens a barbershop with a pie maker, Mrs. Lovett, in which he gashes the throats of customers and baked them into pies. The stage in the concert hall isn’t necessarily known for their ample space, but the cast and crew made the most of it in this masterpiece. The orchestra was strategically placed in the basement of the stage which I thought was interesting because I have not seen anything like that done before. Every other play I’ve attended had the orchestra on the side. With the orchestra barely visible in the basement area, the music felt real like it was just playing from thin air or like you would hear music in a movie. The main part of the stage was the pie/barbershop with the big box on the 2nd floor of the shop being able to access the first floor from there. To the very right was a small wooden balcony to represent the bedroom window of Todd’s daughter Johanna, whom Todd’s friend Anthony and the judge are madly in love with. For the sake of the screenplay no other stage setup was really needed except for a small rolling stage where Todd had a shaving contest with Signor Pirelli in the middle of the town square. The audience of the musical consisted of us classmates in Music 101 and other music classes, faculty, friends and family of the performers, and also theatre fanatics who enjoy musicals or more