My dad and mom introduced me to see a manufacturing of Sweeney Todd after I was 10; I had nightmares for weeks. That will have been the start of my obsession with the Demon Barber of Fleet Avenue.
“We’re so grateful to sing Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece each single day,” Josh Groban explains on the Tiny Desk. “He was so sensible at juxtaposing the gorgeous with the horrific.” (It seems that each Groban and I named our canine “Sweeney Canine,” one thing I discovered after I launched the solid.)
Anticipate a wave of feelings all through this efficiency: empathy for Sweeney (Groban) and Mrs. Lovett (Annaleigh Ashford) with their songs of vengeance and longing, “My Buddies” and “By the Sea”; want with the quartet’s vocal counterpoint carried out in “Johanna (Act 2 Sequence)”; laughter with the duet’s efficiency of “A Little Priest.” Extremely, this Tiny Desk model of the musical isn’t any much less impactful — the 26-piece orchestra presently enjoying the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre will get a nine-piece orchestration courtesy of Jonathan Tunick, Sondheim’s longtime collaborator, led by conductor Alex Lacamoire. Completely mesmerizing.
SET LIST
- “My Buddies”
- “By the Sea”
- “Johanna (Act 2 Sequence)”
- “A Little Priest”
COMPOSER
ORCHESTRATIONS
CAST
- Josh Groban (“Sweeney Todd”)
- Annaleigh Ashford (“Mrs. Lovett”)
- Daniel Yearwood (“Anthony Hope”)
- Maria Bilbao (“Johanna”)
- Joanna Carpenter (“Beggar Girl”)
MUSICIANS
- Todd Palmer: clarinet
- Damian Primis: bassoon
- Sarah Boxmeyer: French horn
- John Chudoba: trumpet
- Kory Grossman: percussion
- Adam Rothenberg: piano, keyboard
- Anna Parks: violin
- Wayne Smith: cello
- Chiho Saegusa: bass
- Alex Lacamoire: conductor
- Randy Cohen: keyboard programmer
- David Lai: music supervisor
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer/Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin
- Director/Editor: Kara Body
- Videographers: Kara Body, Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Keren Carrión
- Animation: Jackie Lay
- Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Audio Assistants: Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez and Neil Tevault
- Manufacturing Assistant: Ashley Pointer
- Photographer: Grace Widyatmadja
- Tiny Desk Staff: Suraya Mohamed, Lars Gotrich, Hazel Cills
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
- Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann
