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A key part of the Memphis theater scene is collaboration and support among its groups.
That can be seen in the action as “Sweeney Todd” opens Friday, June 12, at Playhouse on the Square, a collaboration with Opera Memphis for a production of the darkly comic thriller about a wronged barber in Victorian London whose quest for revenge turns into a spree of murder and cannibalistic meat pies, framed by one of Stephen Sondheim’s most acclaimed scores.
“Sweeney Todd” opened on Broadway in 1979, where it won eight Tony Awards. It is often cited as a landmark achievement of late-20th-century American musical theater, blending opera with horror, satire and musical writing. Critics and scholars regard it as a high point of Sondheim’s career.
Director Whitney Branan says, “You’re going to experience the entire range of what it feels like and what it means to be human in a post-industrial, capitalistic, screwed-up world.”
The cast includes operatically trained singers, musical theater performers, and artists who move between both worlds.
“All of the small theater companies in town are kind of nurtured by Playhouse in various ways,” said Ned Canty, general director at Opera Memphis. “Somebody who is doing shows in Memphis might work at three, four, five different theaters, so the people get to know each other, and it does lead to a lot of collaboration.”
Michael Detroit, Playhouse’s executive producer, agrees.
“Ned and I had been talking about a co-production since he got here,” Detroit said.
Detroit said that they wanted a show with “the weight of opera and the structure of musical theater.”
For a project designed to bridge Memphis’ opera and theater communities, Playhouse and Opera Memphis needed a director who could manage complexity without sacrificing care.
Detroit describes Branan as a rare combination: a director-choreographer who is actor and designer-friendly and skilled at bringing together people who don’t know each other well to build a world onstage.
“Starting at auditions, the amount of new faces from the opera world that came out and that I got to meet and watch just blew me away at auditions was so incredible,” Branan said. “This city … it’s even more vastly talented than I had an understanding of before those auditions.”
Branan said she was initially worried about cohesiveness, but the mix of opera and musical theater performers became a true melting pot, with the cast becoming close from the first week.
For this co-production, “Sweeney Todd” leans into its reputation as both horror show and dark comedy. Branan frames the piece as Sondheim’s answer to William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” — a high-stakes, much-studied classic that can be easy to mess up, but one that rewards risk.
“Really, the final goal then is creating something that makes Memphis a better place, right? So folks are going to come see this show and see what two premier arts organizations can do when they get together and combine their forces,” Detroit said.
“Sweeney Todd” runs through July 12 at Playhouse on the Square. Tickets and more information here.
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