Sweeney Todd: Celebs Rumors

The Tony Awards broadcast this Sunday will feature performances from the casts of Tony Award nominated best musicals and revivals including Camelot, Into The Woods, & Juliet, Kimberly Akimbo, New York, New York, Parade, Shucked, Some Like It Hot and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The show went on at Broadway’s Shucked on Wednesday night, though New York City’s bad air quality did have an impact on the staging: Book writer Robert Horn and composer Brandy Clark stepped in to play the main female character Maizy, with Horn reading the dialogue and Clark singing the songs.

Some of Broadway’s brightest were recognized at the 2023 Drama Desk Awards!

Sweeney Todd is currently one of the hottest tickets on Broadway and the shows’ Tony-nominated stars are celebrating ahead of the big day this weekend.

Even longtime fans of singer Josh Groban could be forgiven some degree of surprise upon seeing the multiple-Grammy nominee in his 2016 Broadway debut Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, so impressive was his Tony-nominated performance in that splendid, eccentric musical. And those that saw his turn as that production’s bookish, melancholic Russian aristocrat Pierre might just as easily be forgiven still further surprise upon seeing Groban in his latest Broadway endeavor as the mad title character of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Yellowjackets” composers and songwriters Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker jumped at the chance to write the original music and lyrics contender “Sit Right Down” for Episode 7 of the Showtime series.“We were deep into the blood, fragmentation, descent and sanity-shattering music,” Wedren says, referring to the events that the survivors have to endure this season. The producers asked them to write an “MGM, old school standard number meets Bob Fosse.” The dream sequence happens as Simone Kessell’s Lottie asks the adult Yellowjackets to choose a therapy option treatment at her “wellness retreat.” Misty, played by Christina Ricci, finds herself in a sensory tank after picking “Guidance.” She needs it. In the teen timeline, Misty (played by Samantha Hanratty) makes a new bestie in Crystal, a fellow theater lover. Except, Misty’s openness with her BFF during a round of rapid-fire secrets comes to a sad end when Misty confesses she sabotaged the flight’s black box recorder. Mortified, Crystal asks if Misty will “poison her,” to which she replies “I’ll fucking kill you.” Moments later, Crystal has accidentally fallen off the cliff to her death. Meanwhile, adult Misty is racking up the “deaths” after kidnapping and spiking a reporter’s cigarette.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nobody’s perfect, but “Some Like It Hot” was close enough for the 67th annual Drama Desk Awards, which gave the Broadway adaptation of the classic film comedy eight honors on Wednesday, including outstanding musical. The top-achieving play was “Life of Pi,” which came away with four awards. Winning three Drama Desk Awards each were “A Doll’s House” and “Sweeney Todd.” Tied with two apiece were “Shucked,” “Prima Facie,” “AIn’t No More” and “Leopoldstadt.” The number of awards these productions received was often not in direct correlation with which shows prevailed for the very top prizes, with only “Some Like It Hot” scoring wins across the board as well as for outstanding musical. While the production of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” came up with only a pair of prizes, one of those was for outstanding play. Meanwhile, “Life of Pi,” the top winner among plays, was not nominated for outstanding play.

Broadway box office overall held steady last week, even as the recent Tony Award nominations already seemed to lose some of their power to boost ticket sales. Some shows with nominations saw declines at the box office, from Good Night, Oscar and Some Like It Hot to Leopoldstadt and New York, New York.

Annaleigh Ashford just won one of the most prestigious awards in the Broadway community!

Broadway’s Leopoldstadt and Some Like It Hot took two of the top honors at today’s 2023 Drama League Awards, the former named Best Production of a Play and the latter Best Production of a Musical.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Four-time Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood will reunite with Tim Burton for “Beetlejuice 2.” Atwood confirmed the news to Variety in an interview on Friday. Atwood is currently in London at work on the film, which is set to arrive in movie theaters next year. The costume designer said she had just finished her first week of production. As previously announced, Michael Keaton will be back as Beetlejuice, and Winona Ryder is reprising her role as Lydia Deetz. Additional cast members include “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega as the daughter of Ryder’s character, as well as Justin Theroux in a yet-to-be-revealed role.

BBC One soap last saw Elaine five years ago but you'll notice that she looks rather different as a new actress has taken over the role. READ MORE: EastEnders fans ecstatic as they spot 90s hunk who played Beppe di Marco in new Netflix show Elaine first appeared in Walford back in 2014 after Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) summoned her to help Linda after she was behaving strangely. Linda eventually told of her terrible rape ordeal after her brother-in-law Dean Wicks (Matt Di Angelo) sexually assaulted her.

The nominations for the 2023 Tony Awards were announced this week and every actor who is nominated for their performance in a musical showed up for the Meet the Nominees event!

The Broadway box office report won’t register the impact of this morning’s Tony Award nominations for a week or two, but today’s news certainly comes as welcome and promising signs for Shucked, Kimberly Akimbo, Fat Ham and other well-reviewed productions doing their best to compete against blockbusters like Sweeney Todd and Parade.

British actress Jodie Comer has earned her first Tony Award nomination for Broadway debut Prima Facie.The Killing Eve star, 30, is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for her role as Tessa in the one-person production by playwright Suzie Miller.The production, about a British defence lawyer who ends up in the witness box, secured four Tony Award nominations in total, including for best scenic design, best lighting design and best sound in a play. After receiving critical acclaim for her West End debut at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, which included winning best actress at the 2023 Olivier Awards, Comer took the play to the John Golden Theatre on Broadway in April which will run until July.

one year after hosting the 75th annual awards in 2022.A full list of this year’s Tony Award nominations can be found below:Best Book of a Musical& Juliet, David West ReadKimberly Akimbo, David Lindsay-AbaireNew York, New York, David Thompson & Sharon WashingtonShucked, Robert HornSome Like It Hot, Matthew López & Amber RuffinBest Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the TheatreAlmost FamousMusic: Tom KittLyrics: Cameron Crowe & Tom Kitt Kimberly AkimboMusic: Jeanine TesoriLyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire KPOPMusic & Lyrics: Helen Park & Max Vernon ShuckedMusic & Lyrics: Brandy Clark & Shane McAnally Some Like It HotMusic: Marc ShaimanLyrics: Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a PlayYahya Abdul-Mateen II, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/UnderdogCorey Hawkins, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/UnderdogSean Hayes, Good Night, OscarStephen McKinley Henderson, Between Riverside and CrazyWendell Pierce, Arthur Miller’s Death of a SalesmanBest Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a PlayJessica Chastain, A Doll’s HouseJodie Comer, Prima FacieJessica Hecht, Summer, 1976Audra McDonald, Ohio State MurdersBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a MusicalChristian Borle, Some Like It HotJ. Harrison Ghee, Some Like It HotJosh Groban, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetBrian d’Arcy James, Into the WoodsBen Platt, ParadeColton Ryan, New York, New YorkBest Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a MusicalAnnaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetSara Bareilles, Into the WoodsVictoria Clark, Kimberly AkimboLorna Courtney, & JulietMicaela Diamond, ParadeBest Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a PlayJordan E.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

At 20 years old, Gaten Matarazzo is already something of a Broadway veteran. The New Jersey native was only 9 when he made his debut in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, a few years older when he appeared in Les Misérables and then, just last year, took over the role of “Jared Kleinman” in the final Broadway cast of the hit musical Dear Evan Hansen.

A Phantom-less Broadway took a hit at the box office last week, dropping about 18% in total receipts (to $31,558,171) from the previous week when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masked singer had contributed $3.7 million in its final week.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Jordan Fisher savors those 7 p.m. showtimes. It’s not that there’s a huge difference on the nights that Broadway’s revival of “Sweeney Todd” starts at 8 p.m. But the extra hour of freedom after curtain call at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre means he gets more time to spend with his family. “I’ll get to bed an hour early and get up with my son so we can hang and have a little bit more time to chill in the morning,” Fisher says over espresso at a swanky bar in Manhattan’s theater district. He got married during the pandemic, and the couple welcomed their first child in last June. “A lot of my mornings are dictated by how late I go to bed. With a schedule like this, we go to work hours after people clocked out of their offices. My body has to get used to it.”

Blumhouse’s The Horror of Dolores Roach is set to premiere on July 7 via Prime Video.

The 2023 Tribeca Festival has announced its lineup of world premieres of new and returning television, including the world premieres of Steven Soderbergh’s Max series Full Circle about a botched kidnapping that reveals long-held secrets in present-day New York City, Prime Video’s Sweeney Todd-inspired The Horror of Dolores Roach and BET+’s Diarra From Detroit, a dark comedy executive produced by Kenya Barris that centers on a divorcing school teacher.

Patti LuPone says that she requested a role in the second season of Schmigadoon!, but was rejected for being “too old.”

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (★★★★★). The big question looming over the head of every theater geek when the cast was announced: Is Josh Groban menacing enough to play Sweeney?It was a fair query. Sweeney Todd is about a British man wrongly punished for a crime he didn’t commit.

Jordan Fisher opened up about being diagnosed with an eating disorder while his wife was pregnant.

Carla Renata A veteran of stage and screen, Tony winner Jane Krakowski returns to “Schmigadoon!” In the second season of Apple TV+’s musical series, Krakowski plays Bobbie, a trial lawyer who sings and dances while roller-skating blindfolded, holding sparklers in her hands and doing splits and flipping around on a trapeze bar. “We tried to pick things I mostly already knew how to do, except trapeze. So, I was allowed to go to trapeze school for like a week and grab five lessons before we filmed,” Krakowski told Variety on the red carpet at Thursday’s FYC event in Los Angeles.

Emmerdale's Charity Dingle didn't quite get the new hair she was hoping for in Thursday evening's episode of the ITV soap, with a trip to the local salon turning out to be disastrous. Charity has been getting ready for her upcoming wedding to Mackenzie Boyd and headed to Mandy Dingle's salon for a hair makeover ahead of her big day. However, Mandy got distracted by some drama between Paddy Kirk and Chas Dingle, which saw her leave Charity's rollers in for too long and use the incorrect hair products.

Broadway showed signs of a spring blossoming last week, with box office receipts and ticket prices taking their traditional climb during the tourist-bumped week leading up to Easter. In all, the 33 productions grossed $38,594,054, a 12% increase over the previous week.

With two weeks left in its 35-year Broadway run, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera posted a huge box office gross last week of $3,247,106, nearly 10% of Broadway’s total take for the seven-day period ending April 2.

Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera had yet another smashing, down-to-the-wire week at the Majestic, grossing more than $3 million for the second consecutive week as the countdown to its April 16 closing continues.

The Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd is officially open!

In a Broadway season that might be remembered for a lovely, pared-down minimalism – the intriguing starkness of A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain, the less-is-more near-concert-style presentations of Into the Woods and Parade – director Thomas Kail’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will stand out for, among many other attributes, its full-on, unabashed ambition. A prodigious theatrical event that aims for greatness and achieves it, this revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler masterpiece is not to be missed.

Stephen Sondheim’s horror-musical in which throats are gruesomely slashed and cannibalism is positively hilarious. 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. At the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W.

Naveen Kumar The cannibalist startup in “Sweeney Todd” kills two birds: For Sweeney, the ruined barber who holds a grudge as steadily as he does a blade, it means turning enemies into actual mincemeat. For Mrs. Lovett, who laments that alley cats were too quick and meager to carve up anyway — well, it’s a living, innit love?  Slitting throats and baking bodies into pies is a wild and wicked business. But in the stately and star-filled revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s macabre 1979 musical that opened on Broadway Sunday night, the people-to-pastries pipeline quickly assumes a grim air of mundanity.  For its stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, this lushly orchestrated and opera-scale production, from “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, proves a magnificent showcase for their respective, jaw-dropping talents. Groban’s weighted-blanket baritone makes the prospect of reclining in his company and never waking up again seem like a great way to go. And Ashford’s fleet, agile instinct for comedy, which earned her a Tony Award for “You Can’t Take It With You,” is like a dippy bird for dopamine. But only one of them is a genuine thrill.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Pictured: Casting directors Katja Zarolinski and Geoff Josselson of JZ Casting. This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. Casting director Geoff Josselson just checked off a major bucket list item. When he was asked what show he dreamed of casting, he would say “Into the Woods.” And just last year, working with Telsey Casting, Josselson was part of the team that assembled the heralded Broadway revival starring Sara Bareilles, Brian D’Arcy James and Joshua Henry. Josselson is on a bit of a Stephen Sondheim spree — with Telsey he also helped cast the new production of “Sweeney Todd,” starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. And he and his partner at JZ Casting, Katja Zarolinski, just collaborated for the first time with the Pasadena Playhouse to cast “A Little Night Music,” playing at the theater April 25-May 1. 

Audra McDonaldAudra McDonald is one of Broadway’s brightest stars — and one who is only a single award away from completing her EGOT.With six Tony Awards to her name, she has more performance wins than any other actor and has also won in all four acting categories.In addition, she has already won two Grammy Awards, for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album, and an Emmy for her performance in Sweeney Todd (Live from Lincoln Center) in 2015. However, the only award missing from her impressive collection is an Oscar, which may prove elusive given her limited involvement in movies. Bette MidlerBette Midler, the renowned singer, actress, and comedian, has been tantalizingly close to achieving EGOT status for some time now.