ON THE TOWN… WITH SWEENEY TODD… AND A SPIRITED SPELLING BEE…

By CHIP DEFFAA

I wish I could personally thank everyone involved in the production of “Sweeney Todd” that I saw yesterday at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts.   But that would mean personally thanking more than 100 people.  I only had time to actually meet two of those 100-plus people after the performance before I had to rush off to do a ZOOM coaching session for a singer who’s recording for me. But I’m grateful to everyone involved in “Sweeney Todd” for giving me one of the most rewarding theatrical experiences of the past year.   They’ve done an astonishingly good production. I’ve never seen better work on the high-school level. And they held me from beginning to end.

They’re giving performances through March 22nd.  If my schedule permitted, I’d go see the show again; it’s that good. (And it’s double-cast; I wish I could see the other cast, as well.)   If you can get a ticket (http://www.fssah.org), go.  And to all of my readers who complain about the high cost of Broadway tickets these days ($900 for prime seats to “Othello,” for example)—tickets to this production are just $20.  There’s nowhere you’ll get more value for your entertainment dollar.

Now, I know some readers may be wondering: “Chip. Are you saying this student production is as  good as the Broadway productions  that you usually review in these pages, like ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard’?”  No, I’m not saying that.  Naturally, I judge Broadway productions  by a different standard than high-school or college productions.  But from time to time, I will call attention to particularly noteworthy high-school or college shows.

And  for a high-school production, the Sinatra School’s “Sweeney Todd”  is top-level work, about as good as it gets.

  This is, overall, astoundingly good work for performers of this age.  And the actors  performed with such enthusiasm, focus, and commitment, I was entranced. This was  surprisingly powerful theater. And some of these young performers clearly have the potential to pursue professional careers in show business, if they so choose.

At intermission,  I happily bought a “Sweeney Todd” tee-shirt, with the names of all 100-plus participants printed on the back. I wish I could have had all 100 participants autograph the shirt, which I’ll wear happily to the recording session I’m running tomorrow.  I wish every one of the students all good luck in the future.  (I look at one shirt I bought at a Sinatra School show about four years ago and note happily that one of the then-students whose name is printed on the back, Mateo Lizcano, has done two Broadway shows since then.)  The students at the Sinatra School deserve praise, and so do the faculty members overseeing the production, including Dr. Jamie Cacciola-Price (responsible for direction and staging), Heidi Best (vocal music director), and Lea Ivanovic (music director/conductor).  I think it’s important to recognize high-quality work by students and faculty; public schools tend to receive lots of criticism from various quarters.  But this is one school that, in terms of performing arts, is getting things right, to an extraordinary degree.

The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, founded in 1999 by Tony Bennett, is—along with Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts,  and the Professional Performing Arts High School–one of New York City’s top performing-arts high schools.  I’ve seen memorable productions at all three schools.  Occasionally—all too rarely—I’ll come across a regular public high school some place mounting shows at about the level found at New York’s top  arts high schools.  (I’ll say a few words, a bit later,  about one such school, Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut—they  do unusually strong  work and they certainly deserve  recognition.)

 But very  few schools anywhere invest the time  that the Sinatra School does each year to get their shows in the best possible shape. The Sinatra School students have worked for seven long months on this musical production, investing an incredible 1,000 hours of rehearsal time.  They don’t just know the material; to a surprisingly large degree they now  own the material, performing with a sureness of touch and an understanding you rarely find in student productions.  I’m not saying that every single student is up to meeting the challenges of “Sweeney Todd” at all times;  but I was hooked from the first notes.  And stayed hooked.

 I  try to see at least one Sinatra School production each year.   They constantly seem to be presenting things—plays, musicals, vocal concerts, dance concerts, instrumental concerts, student film festivals, and more.  If I weren’t so busy with a zillion projects of my own, I’m sure I’d enjoy all of their presentations.   I’m typically able to see only  one or two shows there in a year. But I look forward to these tremendously. These talented young performers give me hope for the future.   And I enjoy watching the striking artistic growth of some performers, from one year to the next, to the next.  Performers  can really improve a lot in a year, at this time of their life.

The last musical I saw at the Sinatra School was “Titanic”—a full year ago  in  March of 2024.  In my review for TheaterScene back then, one of the singing actors I singled out for praise was a student named Joshua Soto.  He did not have a big role in “Titanic,”  but he impressed me more than some with bigger roles who went unmentioned in my review.  I wrote a year ago: “Radioman Harold Bride (played by Joshua Soto—new to me, with a really lovely voice I hope to hear more of in future shows) was effective whether singing or acting—vainly trying to get another ship to aid the Titanic.”

 I did not get a chance to meet Soto then.  I have no idea if he ever saw that review.  But his performance in that small role  stayed with me; I can recognize talent.   (Last summer, I thought of him when I was a producing an album; his voice and personality would have been perfect for one particular number, but I had no way of getting in touch with him and I assigned the recording to an older theater pro instead.)     I look back at that review–where I wrote that Soto had “a really lovely voice I hope to hear more of in future shows”–and it seems prescient.  For this year, I got to see him in the starring role in “Sweeney Todd.”  And if he was very good in a small role last year, he was sensational playing  Sweeney Todd this year.

His singing voice—which was very good a year ago—has ripened.  He’s got a classic Broadway leading-man’s voice now. (At times, I closed my eyes just to savor that voice, to hear how it sounded without my seeing  the production. It’s a great voice; if he ever wanted to sing something on an album I’m producing—and I’ve produced 45 albums over the years–he’d fit  in well with the older theater pros.)   He really threw himself 100% into the role.  I was impressed not just by his singing but by his acting.

You have to understand, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”—with a score by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler—is one of the most challenging of all musicals in the canon.  It’s a masterwork.  But it is a very difficult  show to pull off,  for performers of any age.  And the role of “Sweeney Todd” is about as challenging a role for a male leading man as any role out there.  It is extremely demanding, both in terms of singing and acting.

 I’m guessing Soto is about  17 years old, give or take.  As I took my seat yesterday, waiting for the show to begin—sitting in the front row, where I always love to sit—I wondered how in the world any 17-year-old might be able to do justice to this part.  But when Soto got to Todd’s big number, “Epiphany,” I was thoroughly won over.  It’s an extremely tough number.  And Soto sure came through.  It was a tour-de-force performance.

Here’s Sweeney Todd, under such tremendous pressure at this point in the play, trying to figure out what to do next in his life.  And the strain is showing in his voice and in his body language.  And he’s flinging  himself down onto the stage in angst.  And there’s so much emotion in his voice, we wonder if he’s cracking up, having a nervous breakdown.  And Soto is making me believe every moment of it.  And—more important—he’s also got me  feeling for him, wanting him to find some kind of a way out.  And  I’m almost relieved when—finally breaking the tension–he figures out what he’s going to do next….

And moments later, in a wonderful, music-hall-flavored comic-relief number, Todd  and Mrs. Lovett—with the lightest possible touch—are singing of good times they imagine are coming.  When he will be killing people and she will be grinding them up and baking them into meat pies!

  And it’s very dark humor.  And we’re not just  laughing with them.  We are—because the show’s been directed so well and is being acted so  well—seeing things from their point of view.  And  we’re getting caught up in their emotions.  And Soto and his co-star (Eva Papazian, playing Mrs. Lovett) are carrying  off this light-hearted scene perfectly.  It’s fine, nuanced, beautifully layered work.  I was very impressed.

I once saw a regional production of “Sweeney Todd”—not well directed, not well-acted—in which the two main characters, Sweeney Todd (the barber who is killing people) and Mrs. Lovett (his partner who is making pies out of the human remains) were presented simply as wholly unlikeable, crazy, evil people–killing simply because they liked killing.  And the show didn’t work.   If the two leads  are simply portrayed as wholly unlikeable, evil people doing evil things, we don’t connect with them at all; they’re alien to us, and the senseless killings grow monotonous.

 For the show to work, we have to first connect emotionally with the leading characters—we have to understand things from Sweeney Todd’s point of view, sense some humanity in him when we first meet him.  We have to  see how, in some ways, he’s been a victim; he’s not just a victimizer.  If he’s simply a “heavy,” a stock theatrical villain—someone wholly different from us in the audience–the show loses most of its impact.  Soto, to his credit, gave us a very relatable Sweeney Todd.  (He should be proud pf his work.)

I remember how I had no idea what to expect, when “Sweeney Todd” first opened on Broadway back in 1979.  Of course, anything by Sondheim interested me.  I felt then—as I do today—Sondheim was a genius, and his best work had a profundity I rarely found in Broadway musicals. (He’s one of very few people I’ve known in life who absolutely inspired awe in me; when I first met him, I was tongue-tied.)

When I saw “Seeney Todd” for the first time, in 1979, I was equally interested in seeing its prominent co-stars, Angela Lansbury and Len Carious, whose past stage work I’d loved.  (Seeing Angela Lansbury in “Mame” in 1967 still remains one of the great experiences I’ve had in a lifetime of theater-going; she was a brilliant musical-theater star.  And in 1979  I’d very much liked Len Cariou’s previous work on stage: I’d enjoyed him on Broadway in “Applause” in 1970 and “A Little Night Music” in 1972.)

When I stepped into the theater to see the brand-new musical “Sweeney Todd” in 1979,  I was not anticipating that I’d be seeing a musical darker in tone than any I’d ever seen before.  “Sweeney Todd” was breaking new  ground, shockingly so.  And because Lansbury and Cariou could both project such  likeability at times (Lansbury seemed funny, warm, eccentric, charming, eager-to-help; Cariou had a kind of wounded dignity, like he was  a decent-enough fellow who’d been treated badly by life), it made their ultimate crimes all the more impactful.  We didn’t see everything coming.

The poor guest I brought with me to that new musical in 1979–a visiting friend from overseas who spoke little English, seeing his very first Broadway show—was thoroughly confused by “Sweeney Todd.”  Throughout the show, I did my best to tell him what was going on, whispering to him, translating for him.  But at the end he remained baffled as to why such apparently “nice people” (as he first perceived them) could do the things they did.  And where was the happy ending he would have liked?  He could not understand why Americans could find such a gruesome show entertaining.

“Sweeney Todd” is a complex musical, like most Sondheim shows.  (And it reveals more upon repeat viewings.)  There’s a lot going on,  and themes interweave.  As I watched “Sweeney Todd”  in the Sinatra School’s first-class 800-seat theater, I initially wondered if the rather  young audience (including a fair number of students and younger siblings of students)  was “getting” the play.  Were these kids they following this complex musical?  Were they involved in it? (Or were they mostly confused, as  was the guest I took to see “Sweeney Todd” when it first opened on Broadway in 1979?)   Well, it soon became apparent that they were very much caught up in the musical.   They were utterly silent, rapt, during the quieter scenes—and then offered enthusiastic applause and even some yells of approval when Todd finally killed the hated judge!  Soto had clearly pulled them along with him,  had gotten them to see things from his point of view.  (Well done!)

Cast as  “Mrs. Lovett” in this production—and well-matched, playing opposite co-star Soto with verve—was Eva Papazian.  And she was very good in this big role—finding humor in the lighter moments, singing one demanding number after another with ease.  Her “Mrs. Lovett”  was a formidable woman, a fitting partner in crime for Todd.  Papazian  performed with  a certain panache I enjoyed throughout.

 And again, as was the case with Soto, I was pleasantly surprised to discover, when I arrived at the Sinatra School, that Eva Papazian would be playing one of the leads.  Because I’d liked her work  very much last year (just as I’d  liked Soto’s) in “Titanic.”  She, too, had one of the smaller roles last year—playing Kate McGowan, paired perfectly with Riley Sweetman playing  Jim Farrell; and both Papazian and Sweetman had  touched me with their good work in those smallish supporting roles.  I’d liked their warmth and earnestness, the purity of their voices and spirits.  And the very sounds of their voices.  I’d hoped I might see them both again this year.  When I opened the program for “Sweeney Todd” and saw that they were in the cast, it felt almost like I’d be seeing “old friends” again (even though the only time I’d ever seen them was in one memorable performance of “Titanic” a full  year ago).  And Papazian  handled this arduous star role well.  She was good last year.  (I’d have been glad to record her or Sweetman for one of my albums, if they’d been interested, even then.)  And she was even stronger this year.

 I hope she may have opportunities to play the role of “Mrs. Lovett” again in the future—perhaps in a college production.  As her powers gather, she’ll be able to do even more with the role.  (Here’s one suggestion, if she ever plays the role  again.  If she can bring more of the warmth she radiated as Kate McGowan in “Titanic” to the role of Mrs. Lovett, it will make her performance even more effective.  The sweeter she can seem, singing “Not While I’m Around”—the score’s best song—the more it will pay off when we see her murderous side come out.  The more shocking it will be when she kills the very one that she’s promised to protect.)

Sweetman got brief but fine moments to shine in “Seeney Todd,” singing in that beautiful voice of his occasional taut Sondheim lines.  There was Sweeney Todd, coldly slitting the throats of his victims.  And there was Sweetman,  summing up the action with  this dispassionate play-by-play description: “His fingers quick, his hands were strong. /  It stung a bit. /  But not for long….”  (I admire Sondheim’s craftsmanship so much–his well-turned words say so much so succinctly.)

Sondheim’s shows are filled with contrasts.  And it adds to the unsettling quality of the musical to have the killings described so matter-of-factly by a singing actor in the ensemble (Sweetman) whose timbre and tone are so very pleasing to listen to, whose very sound is so pure and innocent that  it makes the killings all the more disturbing.  I like the sound of Sweetman’s voice very much and was happy he got some moments of solo exposure—however brief–in ensemble numbers.

I wondered, watching “Sweeney Todd,” if these kids on stage have any idea how lucky they are to be part of such a first-rate production of a first-rate musical.  My friend Sarah Rice, who originated the role of Johanna in the original 1979 Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd,”  told me she didn’t realize, when she began rehearsing that musical, just how special it was; and that she would rarely ever have opportunities in her long career to be in shows anywhere near that good.  (Sarah Rice, I might add,  became part of my recording family; I felt honored to have her make recordings for me.  She passed away last year; I still have one more recording that   she made for me not long before she passed, that will be released posthumously on a future Irving berlin album.  I wish I could have taken her to see this production; she would have been amazed to see students do this demanding show so well.  And I’m sure she would have complimented the girl, Olivia Kobrosky, doing such a nice job  now in the role of Johanna—which she loved–that she originated so many years ago.)

Two students I’d never seen before impressed me greatly in this production.  Logan Cross found everything that could be found in the role of Tobias.   I liked his tender, open-hearted interpretation of the role very much.  And what an unusually lovely voice!  He sang “Not While I’m Around” with such tonal beauty, grace, and lyricism, I didn’t want the song to end.  He’s a find!  And I sure hope I get to see him in other shows.  As Tobias, he trusted Mrs. Lovett so completely, complimented her with such real love in his voice, it gave his death poignance.

And I got a great kick out of Michales Purba as the vain, preening barber Pirelli.  He was so funny and played the role with such  high style; I just loved the way he made so much of his part.  A delight to watch on stage.  He lit up the stage in his brief moments on stage. Again, I hope to see more of him in the future.

But the production impressed me from the very first bars that were sung.  The musical opens with the entire company (about 30 students) standing on that fog-filled stage, singing “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.”  And those 30 students were producing a glorious ensemble sound.  I’ve never heard greater vocal ensemble work in student shows than I’ve experienced, year after year, at the Sinatra School.  And I was marveling anew—as I sat in the audience at the Sinatra School yesterday, as close to the stage as possible–at the shimmering beauty of the sound, and at the extraordinary cohesiveness.  (I was remembering, too, how hard it always was, directing musicals I wrote, to get  even 10 singers to sing together without the sound getting muddy; how much time it would require for my music directors and I to get even a small group of singers to sing as one. Last week, at a recording session I was producing, just trying to get three singers to synchronize perfectly was a challenge; we will have to reposition one singer sightly in post-production editing, to keep the voices together.)  And here were these 30 kids phrasing together, breathing together, holding some notes exactly the same length, cutting off phrases when needed with razor-sharp precision.  The sound was lush and full.  And every word was crystal clear.   (I’ve seen a lot of Broadway productions that could have learned from them.)

The sheer beauty of the orchestra—26 student musicians in the pit, bringing to life those marvelous Jonatha Tunick arrangements—deserves high praise, too.

If you can get a ticket to one of the remaining performances, it will be money very well spent.

* * *

Once or twice a year, I like to shine a spotlight on exceptional work I’ve witnessed at the secondary-school or college level.  And today, I’d like to shine a spotlight on the superb  theater work being done by the “Staples Players” of Staples High School, Westport, Connecticut.  Earlier this month, I got to see their latest production, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”  I didn’t go with any intention of reviewing the show.  And this is not going to be a full-fledged review, just a brief appreciation.  But they’re doing such impressive work, they deserve some acknowledgement.

 Staples High School is not a performing-arts “magnet school” (like, say,  New York’s famed LaGuardia High School, the Sinatra School, or the Professional Performing Arts School, whose shows always impress me); it is a regular public high school.  But they’re doing theater work at a level much higher than you’ll find at most schools—the kind of work you’d expect to find at a great magnet school.  And they do far more theater than most schools.

I went to see “Spelling Bee” for my own enjoyment.  First, I’d loved the original Broadway production, which I saw repeatedly.  (I had friends in the Broadway cast, who’ve worked with me, appearing in shows that I’ve presented or on albums I’ve produced.)  So I knew that “Spelling Bee” was a show I’d enjoy.   But I also went hoping to see once again some of the talented players who’d appeared in past Staples productions, such as “Elf” and “James and the Giant Peach.”  (I missed seeing Staples’ last production,  “A Wrinkle in Time”; I had tickets to see the show  on February 8th, but it snowed that day and I opted to stay home rather than be out on the road during a snow storm.)

   But I’m so glad I got to see  “Spelling Bee.”

Will McCrea and Sara Stanley–who’d impressed me so much, co-starring in Staples’ big, handsomely mounted production of “Elf,” some months back (which I enjoyed about as much, overall, as any production of that show I’ve seen)—were even better this time, playing respectively  “Chip Tolentino” and “Logainne Schwarzandgrubenniere.”  And they totally inhabited their characters—which were completely  different from the characters they’d played so well  in “Elf.”    I believed their characterizations completely.  And they’re not easy roles to get just right.  If an actor makes Tollentino seems even a tad too smug or conceited, the character becomes off-putting.  If an actor makes Logainne Schwarzandgrubenniere seem too wimpy, she sort of disappears into the scenery. (In the original Broadway production, her character was sometimes overshadowed by her two dads; the actress simply didn’t have as much presence as they had.)   Those characters—Tollentino and Schwarzandgrubenniere–have to have just the right mixes of strength and vulnerability to work; and it’s a credit to both McCrea and Stanley that they found it.

And what a delight Copper Gusick was, playing the charmingly vague, fey “Leaf Coneybear”; he created real magic on that stage (just as a young, not-yet-famous Jesse Tyler Ferguson did in the original Broadway production).  And he obviously endeared himself to the audience.  When his character was eliminated from the spelling bee for spelling a word wrong, kids in the audience called out, “Noooooooo!”   (I felt their pain; Gusick was just so much fun to watch on stage.)

And McCrea, Stanley, and Gusick all have one very important quality that is can’t be taught: an innate likeability on stage, a quality that makes audiences just  take to you.  (What some professionals term the “Q factor.”)   That indefinable something that makes the person  appealing, right from the start.  (Jesse Tyler Ferguson always had it, and I told him it would contribute to his success, long before he became famous.  He had never gotten big roles in high school productions, he told me; the person in charge of theater at his high school never recognized his talents.  “In ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ I played ‘a cowboy’ and ‘an Indian,’” he told me.  And I put that line and others he told me into a character he inspired, in one of my plays.)

 I  enjoyed very much the performances of McCrea, Stanley, and Gusick in this show.  Talented, likeable players.

One part of “Spelling Bee” that I always like is the participation of some members of the audience, who get invited  to take part in the spelling bee.  What a wonderful surprise it was when they pulled on stage one audience member who just happened to be the noted actor Chris Sarandon.  (I’ve always enjoyed Sarandon’s work, and the work of his wife, actress Joanna Gleason; they live in Connecticut, not too far from the school.)  He was admirably game, and went with the flow beautifully, as a spelling-bee contestant.

  I’m old enough to have seen Sarandon’s  Oscar-nominated performance in “Dog Day Afternoon” in the movie theater when it first came out.  Thus, I got a great kick out of the way they managed to work  a reference to “Dog Day Afternoon” into the spelling bee, when talking to Sarandon on stage—even if that reference  no doubt went over the heads of most kids in the audience.  It was just  so great to see him onstage.

“Spelling Bee” is a good show for kids to do.  (They are, after all, playing kids, and can certainly relate to their characters.)  My hat’s off to all of the spellers in the cast: Gavin Jamali (playing “William Barfee”), Samantha Skopp (“Marcy Par”); Veronica Albee (“Olive Ostrovsky”); and the  school folk running the spelling bee (Sorel Kennedy Blake Raho, Yusef Abdallah).   And even though he had very little to do in this particular show, it gladdened my heart to see on stage once again Beckwith Fipp, because he’s done such vivid, memorable work—giving me joy–in the past for Staples Players.  And I don’t want to forget the student directors of “Spelling Bee”—David Roth and Kerry Long.  Impressive work.

In my many years of reviewing for The New York Post and Entertainment Weekly, I learned to spot talent and potential quickly.  It makes me happy to see performers I first took note of when they were teens achieve  professional success.   Analise Scarpaci, who’s recorded for me since she was a girl, is in her 20s now.  She has three Broadway shows to ger credit, not to mention film and TV work.  I was proud of her when she won a Minty Award (honoring high-school theater in Staten Island)  as a teen.  And I’m doubly proud—and happy for her—that she’s just won a special Minty Award as a “distinguished alumnus,” in recognition of all of her accomplishments.   (And she persevered even though she was bullied in high school for being a “theater geek”; being into theater was not considered cool at her school.  But I saw the potential she had then, and have enjoyed watching her talents blossom since then.)

 It made me very happy that Timothee Chalamet won a Screen Actors Guild Award as “best actor” this year; and I was delighted when his mom wrote me how proud of him she was.  I was remembering giving him recognition in these pages for his work as a high-school student; his potential was evident then, performing in a school musical production.

Over the years, I’ve produced 45 albums.  (The 46th album—the soundtrack album for my motion picture “George M. Cohan Tonight!”–is coming out in just two weeks.)  Many of the seasoned pros who record for me today are artists who’ve worked with me since they were teens, decades ago.  I’m glad to have such continuity in my life.  And am glad to see these performers fulfilling the promise I first saw in them as budding artists so long ago.

I don’t have the time to write about every show I see.  But I enjoy spotting gifted emerging artists just as much as I enjoy seeing older pros.  And I’m happy to give some recognition today to some gifted younger artists who are doing good work.  They’ve brightened my life.   If the timing ever worked out, I’d be proud to work with any of the gifted players I’ve mentioned seeing  this year at the Sinatra School or at Staples.  I’ll have “I-knew-them-when” future bragging rights.

 — CHIP DEFFAA