As one of the leading performing arts organizations in the state, proudly embedded in a public research university with a legendary foundation in social justice and inclusion, PlayMakers Repertory Company will continue to unequivocally support diversity in all forms.

After his production Tings Dey Happen, on life in oil drilling towns of Nigeria, Dan Hoyle wanted to investigate closer to home. He spent three months driving across our country, attempting to find the true meaning of America and what it means to be American.

When Bill Brewer served up “gloriously epic” costume designs for Sweeney Todd, PlayMakers’ costume shop delivered. Longtime PlayMakers Costume Director Judy Adamson leads a talented team of professionals and students to create the stunning looks we see onstage for all of our productions. For a show like Sweeney Todd with its large cast, multiple costume changes, and specific and challenging designs, the charge is especially great.

There’s no place like London, but Jan Chambers‘ masterful design for Sweeney Todd undoubtedly pulls us right into the heart of Fleet Street. The set is expansive and multi-tiered, featuring everything from revolving rooms to trap doors.

It took director Jen Wineman a while to figure out what drew her to the story of Sweeney Todd, but when she figured it out, […]

My job title, Resident Vocal Coach, is commonly used throughout American theatre, but I find the title misleading. In fact, most people assume I either teach people how to sing or that I wear athletic shorts and a whistle around my neck as I bark orders.

Stephen Sondheim’s sumptuous score for Sweeney Todd leaves you humming long after leaving the theatre. It’s choreographer Tito Hernandez’s job to translate that captivating music physically onto the stage through dance.

In a decade in which the American Musical was enmeshed in a state of seismic change, the five collaborations between Stephen Sondheim and director Harold Prince form a stunningly ambitious body of work embodying all of the major transitions. Their first production, the landmark Company (1970) ushered in an era of fractured plots, non-literalist settings, and the tone of ambivalence that would collectively rule the genre.

To paraphrase Voltaire, if Sweeney Todd didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. A figure equally haunting the shadows of his Fleet Street storefront and the whole of the 19th century English imagination, the fiendish barber holds a telling place in the grinding progress of the Industrial Revolution and its headlong rush toward the modern world.