Groban actually took classes at a barbershop to play Todd, explaining that he wanted his blade to feel like an extension of his right arm, like the character. Yet his quasi-pop baritone voice is so grand and gorgeous that no matter how high he swings his arms, when he sings you’re more likely to get goosebumps than shivers down your spine. Ashford previously proved her role as a The sincerity of Sondheim’s heroine, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, is also a delight. Her lovable but clearly unhinged Mrs. Lovett leaves audiences dumbfounded with her first encounter with Todd in her pastry shop ghost town. (Mimi Lien is responsible for the show’s evocative stage design, all smoke, shadows, and gleaming metal.) By turns darkly funny and full of sadness, Sweeney isn’t like that in Generously implemented over years – and well worth the wait. Damn fun, indeed.
Sweeney Todd’s curtain call Sunday night.
2017 Photo: Jenny Anderson 40
On opening night, cast members and guests (including Todd, the Broadway barber, Ren Cario and Christine Baranski et al, Phylicia Rashad, Sutton Foster, Alan Cumming and Sadie Sink) are excited. “ Sweeney Todd is my best friend’s favorite show, and my best friend is the director of the show,” Lin-Manuel Miranda told Kail. “I remember we went to read the book a week after Steve [Sondheim] died, and Steve was going to read it. Feeling very excited and then passed away on Thanksgiving. So it was really special because all of our sadness and joy was mixed in.”
Fisher felt similarly . “When [Sondheim died], I was working for Dear Evan Hansen
, a block from here. I looked at my wife, and I just acted, and then Saying, ‘The next show I do on Broadway, I want it to be a Sondheim production,'” he recalls. “Little did I know that a year later I would be writing the first-ever Black Anthony on Broadway.”
“I think I speak for everyone in this cast [when I say ] We grew up loving the show,” Groban said. “So, especially after the past few years, many of us are grateful to even be back on stage, let alone in a masterpiece, and we all feel like we have such an incredible responsibility to do well. Look after and introduce audiences old and new.”
Added Busy Philipps, who had seen Sweeney on tape as a kid, and then had sex with Her best friend (and Kail’s wife), Michelle Williams, “Josh is incredible. So is Annaleigh Ashford. I honestly think she’s my favorite Broadway actress right now. No offense Any friend, but she’s unbelievable at this.”
