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Arts & Entertainment

Sweeney Todd's World of Macabre Thrills

Check out what's happening this week at Count Basie Theater.

Get ready for some serious thrills this week as Count Basie and Phoenix Productions bring Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd to the stage beginning on Friday, Nov. 11, and running for two weekends.

Sweeney Todd is presented by Phoenix Productions, a community theater company based in Red Bank, NJ. A nonprofit community theater formed in 1987, Phoenix Productions specializes in producing Broadway revivals at a modest cost so that families can attend and introduce children to the theater.

For performers, Phoenix allows actors from all over a chance to work in a full scale production at a renowned theater. They have produced more than 100 revivals of Broadway musicals over the past two decades.

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Sweeney Todd, the musical thriller that may be Sondheim’s crowning achievement, is a suspenseful masterpiece based on a true story of an unjustly exiled barber who returns to 19th century London seeking revenge for the death of his wife, Lucy, and the kidnapping of his daughter, Johanna. Sophisticated and uncompromising, Sweeney Todd is full of black humor, mixing intense drama with hysterical moments.

In the original version, Todd is a disgruntled barber who offs his victims by pulling a lever while they innocently sit in his barber’s chair. They then tumble down a revolving trapdoor into the basement of his barber shop, breaking their necks or skulls during the fall.

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If that horrific death wasn’t enough, Todd assures their demise by slitting their throats with a barber’s straight razor. To dispose of the bodies, Todd joins forces with Mrs. Lovett, who turns the bodies into meat pies and selling them to the unsuspecting customers at her pie shop.

Although the original story was written in the late 1800’s, Sweeny Todd has been retold throughout modern times. It became most widely known in 1979 when Stephen Sondheim brought it to Broadway and won several Tony Awards.

Sweeney Todd has also been produced into several films, the most recent being 2007’s version directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, which was based on the 1979 musical.

The Phoenix Productions revival features a cast of 40 performers led by David Weitzer as Sweeney Todd, a man driven mad by his desire for revenge, and Alison Gleason as Mrs. Lovett, the quirky owner of a meat pie shop just below Todd’s old barbershop.

The supporting cast includes, John Sechrist as Anthony, Jessica Lopez as Johanna, Kathleen Marhold as Lucy, Michael Chartier as Turpin, Andrew Michelson as Beadle, Chris Cortes as Toby, Kent Sweeney as Fogg, and Mario Castro as Pirelli. The cast, production staff, and orchestra will recreate an eerie London atmosphere and demonstrates what “cutting edge” theatre is really about.

Sweeney Todd will run at Count Basie Nov. 11 - 13 and return the following weekend, November 18 - 20.

Schedule:

Friday, Nov. 11, 2011: Sweeney Todd, 8 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011: Sweeney Todd, 8 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011:  Sweeney Todd, 3 p.m.

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