Following the publication last October of my recent book, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: Behind the Bloody Musical Masterpiece, I was recruited by Vincent DeGeorge, Patricia A. Corbett Distinguished Chair of Musical Theatre and the Joseph Weinberger Chair of Acting for the Lyric Stage, to serve as dramaturg in support of his April 2026 staging of Sweeney Todd at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). A dramaturg is a literary and historical consultant who works with a production’s creative team to support the artistic realization of a show. For several months I have attended rehearsals, met with performers and DeGeorge’s creative team to offer insights and answer questions about Sondheim’s greatest work.
It’s the first time I’ve worked so closely on a production of one of Sondheim’s shows. It’s been especially fascinating because this has been an unprecedented collaboration between two of CCM’s nationally renowned programs: DeGeorge chairs the department that trains musical theater performers, while Amy Johnson, professor of voice and a respected opera singer, chairs the opera department. Both are veteran professional performers and director, and both have taught at CCM for more than a decade. They lobbied to undertake Sweeney Todd, and it’s been an extensive two-year process of planning, designing and rehearsing to bring their production to the UC’s Corbett Auditorium stage. The performances will be accompanied by CCM’s top orchestra, the Philharmonia, conducted musical director Ian Axness.
Opera singers and musical theater performers are trained musically, but there are differences in how they are prepared for careers. As result of my engagement with this production, I was invited by Movers & Makers, a monthly Cincinnati magazine that covers arts and culture, community and philanthropy, to write a feature about how the two disciplines could successfully collaborate on a work like Sweeney Todd that, since its 1979 debut, has become a frequent production by theaters and opera companies. It’s been successfully revived on Broadway several times, and it’s often included in the season repertoire of renowned opera companies across the U.S. and around the world. Sondheim’s complex and masterful score has succeeded in both worlds, so I found it especially intriguing to observe performers from both disciplines working together. Here’s a link to my feature in Movers & Makers April issue.
The culmination of this project will be six performances of a spectacular production on April 15-19. Two casts have mixed and matched performers in the leading roles. One cast features pair of opera grad students as Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are matched with musical theater students as Anthony and Johanna; the other has musical theater performers as Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, and opera performers as the young lovers. The large cast blends performers from both programs in other roles and mingles an array of them for the production’s busy ensemble, especially performing the fearsome “Ballad of Sweeney Todd.” Each set of leads will be onstage in three of the six performances.
ASL interpreting will be available during the Friday, April 17, performance. For tickets: 513-556-4183 or follow this link.