From The Harrington Theatre Arts Company- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Conducted By: Gavin Kennedy

Edited By: Bridget Gallagher

Jordan Viszoki as Sweeney Todd in a promotional graphic for the production

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Performing at the Pearson Hall Auditorium the weekend of November 13th, the Harrington Theatre Arts Company presented a production of the 1979 smash-hit Broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Written and composed by the 8-time Tony Award winner Stephen Sondheim, known for other shows such as West Side Story, Into the Woods, Gypsy, Company, and many, many more.

Sweeney Todd is quite easily the goriest and darkest of his expansive catalog, with the story following a middle-aged Benjamin Barker as he returns from exile to enact revenge for his wife, slain by a corrupt judge. Barker then adopts the identity of  “Sweeney Todd” (played by Jordan Viszoki), a barber that lives above a baker, Mrs. Lovett (Allie Miller). The musical deals with heavy topics such as suicide, grief, sexual assault, and many murders. These topics are not played for laughs—though there are moments of comedic relief—but instead revel in the absurdity of it all as the story explores these ideas in a meaningful way that is still somehow palatable for the average audience. The exploration of these subjects comes in large part through how the events predating and during the show affect our characters and how they interact with others and the world around them 

As for the music of the production, Sondheim delivers a vibrant score complete with deep and intricate orchestration that is littered with musical themes. Specifically, he uses the Dies Irae, the 13th-century Gregorian chant that has come to represent death and destruction in a countless number of pieces of modern media. Sondheim bakes (pun intended) this musical idea of death into almost every leitmotif in the show for those who are going to kill or be killed at some point (spoiler: most of them). Sondheim delivers a masterful score that lays out the plot of the story in its entirety in the opening number, titled “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” functioning as the theatrical prologue, complete with an ostinato-based cannon and a chorus that is literally just the Dies Ire theme mentioned before. The last unique lyrics of the prologue read: 

“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd

He served a dark and vengeful god

What happens then, well, that's the play

And he wouldn’t want us to give it away.”

The Interview

I had the gracious opportunity to catch the actor of the titular character, Sweeney Todd himself, during his free time and was granted an interview with the talented Jordan Viszoki. We spoke about himself, the nature of the show and his character's role in it, and the experience of a first-time HTAC player. Note that this interview was conducted on November 7th, a week before the production opened on Thursday, November 13th.

Who am I here with today?

“I am Jordan Viszoki. I am Sweeney Todd, in [The Harrington Theatre Arts Company] production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and this is my first time in HTAC.”

Could you describe your theatrical and choral journey before this show?

“Yeah, so I started theater for the first time in 6th grade with a little, uh, small short show doing Schoolhouse Rock. From there, in 7th grade we did a show called Back to the 80s, where I was the lead character called Corey Jr.---a very corny show, nothing really crazy. 
From there, I did the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland in 8th grade, also a really corny version of the show. It wasn't like the real version; it was kind of interesting. 

Freshman and Sophomore year, I was unable to participate in theater largely due to COVID-related reasons. Um, and then Junior year, we did The 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, where I played William Morris Barfay. And Senior year, we did Mean Girls, where I was the mathlete himself, Kevin G.

I've been doing choir for about 13 years now. Um, I was in choir from 4th grade all the way up to now at college. I participate in the University of Delaware Chorale and also the Delaware Choral Scholars, where we compete internationally. 
We recently went to Tulos, Spain, and won an international choir competition there, and we will be competing in Slovenia in April.”

How’s your first experience been at HTAC?

“I really love HTAC. The first time I went in, even in the auditions and the callbacks, the community was very, very welcoming. Everyone wants everyone to succeed and do well, and everyone is super supportive of everyone else and wants to get to know everyone. Everyone is friends. 
I know the names of everyone in the ensemble, and everyone in the ensemble knows everyone else's names, including the R staff, the production staff, and the pit. It's a very welcoming and wholesome community, and I'm very, very glad that I got the chance to participate and got so fortunate to get a lead in my first show here.”

What have you done to prepare for your role?

“So preparing for my role was kind of an interesting experience. 
Once I got the phone call saying that I got Sweeney, the first thing that I did is I (allegedly) found an illegal version of the Broadway show online and watched that. I next watched the movie adaptation, both the British and the American one with Johnny Depp, and I can't remember the main actor. And I then read through the script several times and have been listening to the playlist—both the original Broadway version and the one with Josh Groban—nonstop. 


I've been trying to interpret the differences between all of these versions, what Sweeney Todd really should be and shouldn't be. And from there, I try to make my singing a bit of my own and a bit of theirs, and I really try to get into the character while I'm singing these songs—like, try to analyze why Sweeney is feeling the way he's feeling. 
Like, why is he so angry at the world? And I try to emulate that to the best of my ability.”

Who is your favorite rendition of Sweeney Todd that you’ve encountered in your preparation process?

“For me, it has to be Josh Groban. I really don't think that anyone comes close to his vocal or tone quality and also the feeling and emotion he puts behind the piece. I really enjoy his interpretation of the character.”

How are you handling the heavy themes of this show, especially your character?

“It's kind of a struggle. It's something that's very interesting to relate to.
I have to put my head into the frame of someone that was married, had a wife and child, and was unjustly ripped away from all of that, specifically because someone else wanted to take my wife and kids. And once I get myself in that mindset, I feel like it's pretty easy to understand why Sweeney is so angry at everyone and just wants to get his revenge. I'm sure that we've all had times where we've been screwed over by a professor or someone has unjustly taken something out on us and we just want to get some kind of revenge. 

One of my favorite lines in the show is, ‘To seek revenge may lead to hell, but everyone does it. If seldom as well as Sweeney.’ And I think Sweeney really deserves his revenge, but does kind of go overboard and kind of loses sight of his goal. 

So it's very interesting putting myself into a mindset where I genuinely have to go a little bit mad. Like, I'm a little bit crazy.”

How do you think the production, creative, and rehearsal staff are handling the brutal nature of a lot of the scenes?

“I think the production staff and the rehearsal staff are doing a fantastic job at handling these. We have had several fighting and  intimacy workshops, and we do routine consent checks before anything that involves any kind of stage killing or any kind of stage violence. We always make sure that everyone is comfortable doing things, and we never push anyone into doing anything. We have routinely changed things because some things make people in the cast uncomfortable, and I'm a huge fan of that. I don't like pushing people into doing things that they're uncomfortable with. I'm sure everyone has had an experience in high school theater where the director just kind of expected you to do something, and that's not the case here. It's very communicative; it's very clear what people want to and don't want to do, and if you're uncomfortable with something, we just change it. And I'm a really big fan of that. And I think everyone is very comfortable doing the things that we have to do on stage.

Could you share an anecdote about the aforementioned consent and fight coordination?

“I think the one thing that I would probably talk about the most is there's a member of the cast, Lawrence, who I work with a lot. Specifically, I pull his teeth, I shave him, I kill him; I do a whole bunch of things with Lawrence. 

And we've kind of become great buddies about it. Like, for the tooth pulling scene, I have to visibly squeeze his jaw open and inspect his mouth, and then I have to insert pliers into his mouth, and I have to, like, fake grab onto a tooth, and then yank it out. And then I also have to drag a razor across his throat. And then there's a lot of physical action where it looks like I'm fighting, killing, and kind of doing a lot of rather violent things with Lawrence. 

And we have staged it so well that I'm barely touching the guy. Like, I hardly put my hands on him. I hardly do anything. He hardly touches me, but we've made it look like we're having a full-on fight on stage, and I really am a big fan of it, and I think it's gonna look really, really cool to the audience.”

Do you feel that these moments of realistically minimal contact are handled and directed well enough for them to not lose any impact on the audience?

“I think it’s still handled enough that we get that impact because it's staged to look like I am touching him. 

And especially with the height difference in Pearson, the audience is below most of the action. It's going to look, from the audience's perspective, that I'm still viciously grabbing him, and I'm still yanking out his teeth with a lot of force, and I'm still, like, murdering the guy. It really does look like I am doing all of the things that I'm doing, and I am very curious to hear how the audience feels about that from their perspective, because from my perspective, it looks pretty violent. We record all of the intimacy workshops so that we can see what we did for future preference. And in the videos I've seen. It looks pretty graphic and real, and I'm a huge fan of it.”

Any closing remarks?

“Yeah, I would like to give a quick shout-out to everyone that's involved in the production, from the pit to the rehearsal staff, to the production staff, to the crew, to the tech staff, to the lighting staff, to the sound staff, to the ensemble, and to my fellow leads. Everyone has come together and worked so, so hard to put this show together, and I would be a very, very poor Sweeney Todd if I didn't have this amazing group of people behind me to support me and back me up and give me the help that I need to really put on the best performance possible.”

Conclusion

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is playing at Pearson Hall Auditorium from Thursday, November 13th, to Saturday, November 15th. At the time of writing, I have not yet seen the production, but through my interactions with the production staff, rehearsal staff, and cast, I have no doubts that this Victorian melodrama of a thriller musical will be an amazing production to cap off Harrington Theatre Arts Company’s Fall 2025 season.