Christian Borle, Philip Quast, Erin Mackey and More Join NY Philharmonic's Sweeney Todd with Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel | Playbill

Related Articles
News Christian Borle, Philip Quast, Erin Mackey and More Join NY Philharmonic's Sweeney Todd with Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel Tony Award winner Christian Borle, Olivier Award winner Philip Quast, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Erin Mackey and more will join two-time Academy Award winner Emma Thompson and opera star Bryn Terfel in the New York Philharmonic's March concert presentations of Sweeney Todd at Avery Fisher Hall.

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/df85ec3ecfb78a1add79176ba00b0386-borle200_1337017905.jpg
Christian Borle Photo by Monica Simoes

Borle (Peter and the Starcatcher, "Smash") will play Pirelli, with Quast (Les Misérables, Sunday in The Park with George) in his New York stage debut as Judge Turpin, Blumenkrantz (Murder for Two, Candide) as The Beadle, Johnson (Hands on a Hardbody, Hair) as Anthony Hope, Mackey (Chaplin, Anything Goes) as Johanna and Kyle Brenn (West Side Story) as Tobias Ragg.

As previously reported, bass-baritone Terfel will star in the title role, with Thompson making her New York stage debut as pie-maker Nellie Lovett. Thompson won her Academy Awards for "Howards End" (Best Actress in a Leading Role) and "Sense and Sensibility" (Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium).

Sweeney Todd will be conducted by music director Alan Gilbert and directed by Lonny Price, who directed and produced the Philharmonic’s productions of Sondheim’s Company in 2011, Sondheim The Birthday Concert! in 2010, and Sweeney Todd in 2000.

Performances will take place March 5-8 at Avery Fisher Hall.

The Philharmonic presented a staged production of Sweeney Todd in May 2000 conducted by Andrew Litton, directed by Price, and starring George Hearn (who replaced the originally announced Bryn Terfel) and Patti LuPone. The production was subsequently released on a New York Philharmonic CD. Set in Victorian London, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, according to press notes, tells the story of the "eponymous barber who seeks vengeance on what he sees as a merciless world by murdering his customers and, with the help of his landlady, the romantically inclined Mrs. Lovett, bakes their bodies into meat pies, which are fed to London’s avid and unknowing populace."

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, Sweeney Todd first opened on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979, directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. The show received eight Tony Awards in 1979 — including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score — as well as 11 Drama Desk Awards and the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical.

On March 5, the New York Philharmonic will hold its Spring Gala. For information about the Gala, which includes a pre-concert reception, concert and post-concert seated dinner with the artists, contact Jennifer Levine, [email protected], or call (212) 875-5757.

All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656. Tickets may also be purchased at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office.

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!