SWEENEY TODD by Steven Sondheim, School Edition, Georgetown Palace Theatre, July 11 and 13, 2013

[Georgetown Palace Theatre, 810 S. Austin Ave., Georgetown, Texas -- click for map]

presents 

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Sweeney Todd, SummerStock Austin at Rollins Theatre, July 30 - August 8

The demon barber who slits his clients' throats is an urban myth celebrated in print first as a "penny dreadful," or serialized story of scandal and murder, in London in 1845. The razor and the strop continued to hold a fascination, at least until the technological advance of Mr. Gillette's safety razor put them at some remove. That wicked barber had figured in 13 earlier versions on radio stage and screen before this 1979 piece by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. They adapted British dramatist Christopher Bond's 1973 stage play, which had reimagined Todd as the wronged party, bent on revenge.

SummerStock Austin gives us their vivid imagining of Sweeney Todd's world. It's a London of grotesques and dog-eat-dog, corresponding to that which Thomas Hobbes imagined as pre-dating civil society: "a war of all against all " where lives are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

The self-assured Judge Turpin and his agent the unctuous Beadle Banford represent the genteel classes who oppress the poor and regard them as little more than animals. Into this morass and degradation comes Sweeney Todd, unjustly condemned many years before and now escaped from a penal colony. Pie baker Mrs. Lovett tells him that his beautiful wife has died and that his infant daughter Johanna is a ward of the Judge. Mrs. Lovett restores to him his case of razors -- Todd's "little friends" -- and the elaborate revenge plot begins.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors, SummerStock Austin at Rollins Theatre, Long Center, July 30 - August 9

Click for ALT review of Little Shop of Horrors, August 6



Click for ALT review of Sweeney Todd, August 2



UPDATE: Review of "Little Shop" by Rob Faubion, AustinOnStage.com, August 1

UPDATE: Review of "Sweeney Todd" by Clare Croft for Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, July 31

Received directly from SummerStock Austin:

Sweeney Todd

SummerStock Austin is pleased to present this new production of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, Sweeney Todd, to the Rollins Stage this summer. Sweeney Todd tells the tale of Benjamin Barker, a barber who is driven to seek vengeance upon Judge Turpin and his henchman Beadle Bamford for the death of his wife and evil deeds that may befall his daughter, Johanna. How will he do it?

Come and take a trip with us to the dark streets of London and Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pie Shop to find out. Includes the songs “Not While I’m Around,” “Pretty Women,” and “A Little Priest.” [Click image for larger version]

Little Shop of Horrors

SummerStock Austin celebrates its fifth season by presenting one of the longest-running Off-Broadway shows of all time, Little Shop of Horrors. This affectionate spoof of 1950s sci-fi movies has become a house-hold name, thanks to a highly successful film version and a score by the songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who redefined the animated musical film with Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast and Aladdin. Charming, tuneful and hilarious, Little Shop Of Horrors never fails to entertain. [Click image for larger version]

Click for dates, times, ticket link and poster, at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Upcoming: Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors, SummerStock Austin 2009

Posted by Rob Faubion at AustinOnStage.com:


SummerStock Austin Moves to The Long Center for Upcoming Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors

SummerStock Austin (SSA) - the seasonal training program collaboration between St. Edward's University and Zilker Theatre Productions - starts its fifth season with a move to a new venue. This year’s summer stagings of Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors with be presented at Rollins Theatre at The Long Center.

Due to renovations to the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at St. Edward's University, SSA will have to move its performances to down the road to Austin’s newest center for the performing arts. The SSA program will remain a sponsored project of St. Edward's and Zilker Theatre Productions, and rehearsals, administrative offices and set construction will still remain at St. Edward’s.

For this year’s shows, SummerStock Austin has cast a 38 member company of college and high school performers and 10 technicians. The 22 college students come from St. Edward's University, Texas State University, Baylor University, AMDA and Juilliard School of the Arts.

High school participants come from eight different area schools including McCallum, Bowie, Dripping Springs, Westwood, McNeil, Cedar Park, Blanco, and Star Charter. More than 80 students auditioned and interview to be part of the fifth season.

Read more at AustinOnStage.com . . .

Reviews: Sweeney Todd at the Paramount Theatre, October 31 - November 1

From the perceptive review by KariKross at Austinist.com, dated November 4:

The touring company is very fine both as actors and musicians, and Carrie Cimma's Mrs. Lovett was especially notable, whether shaking her bum in time to her tuba-playing during "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir," gleefully swapping puns and bad jokes with Sweeney in "A Little Priest," or breaking down at last in the unrelenting finale. This isn't Angela Lansbury's blowsy music-hall turn; this performance, based on Patti LuPone's, is more Weimar cabaret with a touch of Goth style in her ripped fishnet stockings. She was well-matched by Merritt David James's Sweeney, whose singing voice has some of the tenor qualities of Johnny Depp's voice bolstered with theatrical firepower like that which Michael Cerveris brought to the role on Broadway. . . .

This production of Sweeney Todd is a deceptively simple staging, reading at first almost like an experimental black-box theatre piece. The simplicity is in fact the result of a well-oiled machine, and the actors don't miss a beat in the transitions from scene to scene and from acting to music and back again. And in the end, the minimal elegance of the staging allows the audience to focus on the beauty, discords, and humor of the music, and on the emotional heft of the story. It's not a museum piece; it's a living work of art.

[Click for text of full review]

From the review by Laura Cole posted by the Daily Texan:

Though the entire cast is talented, Carrie Cimma stands out in both vocals and acting as Mrs. Lovett, with her brash, domineering personality, strong cockney accent, physicality and comedic timing. Her duet with Merritt David Janes drew the most laughs of the night in “A Little Priest,” a song filled with puns about the people they plan to bake into meat pies. Janes also performs solidly as Sweeney Todd, especially notable for his power over dynamics in songs like “Epiphany,” a song of both vengeance and mourning, that jumps between fierce staccato and softer, more sustained stretches of vocals. Chris Marchant gives an incredible performance as Tobias. Along with some of the strongest vocals and instrumentals in the cast, his characterization of the mentally unstable boy is utterly convincing.

Those who opted to spend their Halloween at the theater enjoyed a real treat.

[Click for text of full review]