Sweeney Todd opens at downtown Mount Pleasant Broadway Theater this weekend
The demon barber of Fleet Street will take to the Broadway Theatre stage this weekend.
Starting today, Friends of the Broadway will perform “Sweeney Todd” downtown at 216 E. Broadway St.
The production is directed by Mike Meakin, a local minister and veteran director, and features a large cast and crew consisting of several Central Michigan University students and graduates.
One of the new actresses to the theater, Erin Fox, devoted her free time this summer to the musical when she stumbled upon the Broadway Theatre and found they were planning on the musical.
She is one of many performers bringing experience to the stage.
Others include Brian Ketner, who will play Adolpho Pirelli.
“My favorite part about theater is just pretending to be something else,” the Jackson graduate student said. “It’s really an escape to be able to become a completely different character.”
Ketner started doing theater when he was in junior high while his mother did costuming for various community productions.
“Sweeney Todd” is a story about a man named Benjamin Barker who owns a barber shop in the downtown area of London where he later develops a somewhat evil partnership with his tenant, Mrs. Lovett.
The story has been a popular musical on Broadway in New York City for years and was made into a movie starring Johnny Depp in 2007.
The director and cast said they think the familiarity of the story of Sweeney Todd will bring in a lot of extra publicity and hopefully a larger audience — but they warn it will not be a reproduction of the film.
Meakin said Burton’s direction was vastly different from the theater version he has tried to create.
“The lighting is darker, the stage direction is completely different and I tried to make it much more humorous,” he said.
Meakin said he was amazed by how much he was able to fit on the stage for each scene despite the theater’s relatively smaller size.
Tickets are available at the box office, Ric’s Food Center, 705 S. Mission St., or at the door for $8 dollars.
The production will continue to run through the weekend, including a matinee showing on at 2 p.m. Sunday and further shows the following weekend.
