Three decades ago, at the absolute top of their games, prodigious composer Stephen Sondheim, librettist Hugh Wheeler and director Hal Prince delivered Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Uris Theatre on Broadway. Its 557 performances (a long run for Sondheim) captured the imaginations of theater makers everywhere.

It spawned revivals that both honored the extraordinary spectacle of the original production and invited reinterpretations, from the opulence of enormous grand opera to the enormously successful, if bizarrely intimate, reinvention by director John Doyle in England in 2004 and on Broadway in 2005.

The Grand Guignol musical continues to offer delicious opportunities to performers, designers and musicians who never tire of Sweeney’s challenge – and audiences continue to respond with enthusiasm.

From The Production Company's "Sweeney Todd"

This year, the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards celebrate both Sweeney’s longevity and its surprising malleability with an even dozen nominations (six each) between two very different productions. The two stagings were so dramatically diverse that they were more complementary than competitive.

Musical Theatre West, one of the few survivors of the light opera movement from the last century, produced an enormous, full-orchestra revival directed by Calvin Remsberg, who brought his expertise as a veteran of the first tour of the original Broadway version. The Production Company, in its fourth year of existence, chose to do Sweeney as its first musical outing. Director Derek Charles Livingston tackled the massive project with an intimate space, small cast and single musician. Both productions garnered amazing critical acclaim.

The first requirement for producing any Sondheim, and most particularly Sweeney Todd, is a musical director who can wrap his mind around the immensity of the piece – usually paying homage to Jonathan Tunick, whose original orchestrations are nearly as integral to the play as Sondheim’s composition and lyrics.

Taking the traditional approach, attempting to closely reproduce the Broadway original, Musical Theatre West’s Remsberg brought in John Glaudini to be musical director. Glaudini is quite intimate with musical theater, having worked with both BMI and ASCAP workshops, which led him into a close professional relationship with composer Stephen Flaherty during the creation of Ragtime. Glaudini recalls, “I got to witness the whole process of putting Ragtime up from the readings in Toronto. I first met Stephen Flaherty right at the transition to computers. Steve was doing a lot of hand copy work so I suggested he switch to computer. I showed him how by doing bass book – the charts for the bass player. So when he got the Ragtime gig he asked them to put me on the payroll to help him transition to computer. I was score monitor through out the process. It was really great for me, sitting in a hotel room with Steve Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens and Terrence McNally.”

As much as he loved the theater scene regionally and in New York, Glaudini felt his growing family needed the roots of Southern California so he returned to his home state to work in every musical capacity he could. “My business card simply says ‘Musician’ – it’s a double-edged sword. It’s great because you can go wherever you need to. I worked Nine to Five then went to Chicago for Spamalot as a copyist working with the orchestrator. I even did Bounce at the Kennedy Center. I have done shows at the Denver Center and other theaters as orchestrator/arranger. I moved back to California with my family because our families are here.”

John Glaudini

Especially on a show like Sweeney whose music has been so brilliantly orchestrated by Tunick, the big question is what actually is the job of a musical director? Glaudini laughs, “Very good question! Sweeney has been reinvented so many times.” Each new cast needs some specific challenges. “Calvin and I were trying to find the right tempo for the big number ‘Epiphany.’ I did my work following the clues Sondheim gave me. I came in with the tempo I thought was right.”

But Norman Large, the actor playing the title role, had other ideas. “He came in from a different place completely. My job was to try to serve the actor as well as Sondheim did. The greatest part of this experience was working with Calvin. He knows the score. He knows the drama. He had his ideas and knew what he wanted to do. Still he let me and Norman discover. There was some tension trying to get there. That was a really good thing.”

Perhaps most exciting about this Southern California musical gig was that Glaudini didn’t have to compromise on the size of the sound. “So often working regionally they ask the musical director to do a lot with a little. For example: ‘We want to go back to the original but you only have five players in the pit.’ How is that possible? So much of what made the original Sweeney successful was that the orchestrations by Tunick counteract the darkness in such a way that it becomes epic.” He compares that to the very popular New York revival that embraced the darkness utterly. “The revival with actors playing instruments became Kurt Weill-like, dark and small the way a revue would be. It doesn’t have that counterpoint.”

A Different Sweeney

Across town an entirely differently sized Sweeney took shape. Critical darling The Production Company tackled its first musical with ingenuity. The long list of character and ensemble parts was reduced to a company of 10 with most actors playing several roles. The orchestra was reduced from nearly two dozen players to one. Nevertheless the sound was huge, and the musical director and sole musician Richard Berent has been nominated for an Ovation Award alongside Glaudini.

To say the production had a single musician is really a bit of a tease. The fact is Berent has been working on a hybrid of recorded musical track and live playing. The work is intensive and he does it because he so loves Sondheim’s compositions. “I am a lifelong Sondheim fan. It all kind of flows from that. This is the fourth production I have done this for. I have done Assassins, Passion, Sweeney and most recently Into the Woods.”

Richard Berent

Berent explains the concept and the technique. “I take all of Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations and put them on my computer. Then I play along with it on the piano. Ninety percent of what you are hearing is the actual orchestration through speakers and my computer. Then I play a real live acoustic piano. I am the only live performer.

“What I am crazy enough to do is put them all on my computer individually. Every single instrument. It is not a thing a sane person would do, but I am such a fan of Sondheim and have such gratitude for how he has impacted my career. It is sort of my way of giving back. I have been wondering why my work in such a small theater got nominated with all these esteemed people. I can only imagine it is because I went through the effort to do that.

“I have done it enough and spent so much time with it that it sounds amazing. Many people who experienced it would come back to me afterwards and not really know what they had heard because it sounded so amazing but had this cognitive dissonance. How could they have a full orchestra in a 50 seat theater? How do they have the budget to do that?”

One wonders how long this technology has been available. Berent responds, “In a crude way synthesizers have been able to create reasonably authentic orchestral sound and record digitally for roughly 20 years. The truth is the technology has been constantly evolving and continues to evolve as you know with everything else. It has gotten to the point now where it is remarkably realistic. Even now there are improvements that are being made. State of the art now is that you can do a pretty convincing version.”

Is it possible other companies could use his recordings with another pianist? “Yes, but part of the fun of what I do and why I go through all that effort is to custom-make it for every production so the most basic things that would be different for any production are regarding tempo. When you rent a score from MTI or French, part of it is that you contractually agree to do the piece exactly as written!

“The reality is every production and director has little things they want to jiggle with. Cut a verse here or extend and underscore there. Add a dance break. You can’t futz with it during performance. Flexibility in performance is that I am playing piano live. So if a section needs to breathe you can sort of take out the pre-recorded sound for a moment.”

Although Remsberg’s production at Musical Theatre West followed the original orchestration practices, Remsberg visited Berent’s production and a new partnership was born. “Calvin actually came and saw our little Sweeney Todd. I said hi to him afterwards and he was so impressed with what I did for that Sweeney Todd that he then turned around and hired me for a production of Into the Woods that we just did downtown.”

Powerful Voices Needed

Whether pre-recorded with live piano or fully orchestrated, someone has to provide the characters and sing the colossal songs. In both cases several members of each cast have received Ovation nods. Although in a small space, The Production Company was determined to create its Sweeney Todd with powerful voices.

From The Production Company's "Sweeney Todd"

Kurt Andrew Hansen, Broadway and regional theatre veteran, shies away from sub-100-seat theater in LA but this one intrigued him. “Sweeney Todd is such a great role. When I first saw the theater I thought there was no way we were going to be able to create Sweeney in such a small space. We were lucky Derek Livingston had a vision for it and was able to show us what that was. What made it work was taking the show we have all seen numerous times that it is so broad and turning it into a real intimate piece of theater. That’s why we were successful with it. We really brought it down to the bare bones. All about character. No longer about whether the house turns around or whether there are stairways to walk on. It is getting down to the specifics of character. It’s almost like doing a film with close-ups a lot of the time.”

Was there concern the performers might be too powerful for the space? “I never worried about it. I have done two Broadway shows and played big stages. It’s one of those things – you feel what the space is. You know what you can and cannot do. You just build the intensity instead of volume. Maybe the audience did feel overpowered.” The difficult part was working with Berent’s new hybrid orchestration. “Sondheim is never easy even with a conductor. You have to pay attention to the conductor; the music has to be right.”

Jenny Ashman, another member of The Production Company cast, describes the process of playing so many different roles while still creating the full character of Sweeney’s daughter Joanna. She was nervous when she first heard the concept. “There would be only 10 people. Each actor would be a principal and also ensemble, except Sweeney and Lovett, so we’d be on stage the entire time. It wasn’t completely bare boned; we had costumes, the chair, they were just really clever about the way they handled the staging.

“They warned us we’d be just a couple of feet from the audience. In a production like this it is odd – the end of the show is screaming these crazy high notes. I was the ensemble soprano and it goes so high! You are just looking straight at the audience, screaming high notes. Playing Joanna and ensemble was so challenging. I feel like it built up my endurance and stamina. Pushed me.”

While working on the music in Sweeney is a huge challenge, the character work is also remarkably complex. She was thrilled that director Livingston wanted full character. “I loved at the callback Derek said to me, ‘Remember that Joanna fires the gun.’ She’s been trapped her entire life and she is someone who has watched everyone and is well read. Even her word choices. I think Sondheim wrote her as a smart person, not a dumb blonde. Obviously her surroundings have made her maybe not the most socially adept person – she hasn’t interacted with many people. She knows at that moment it is her last shot; if I don’t do this now, no one else is coming to find me. No matter what character work you are doing you have to dive in. Such flawed people are the most fun to play.”

Norman Large and Debbie Prutsman in Musical Theatre West's SWEENY TODD. Photo by Alysa Brennan

While The Production Company actors delighted in putting so much power in such a small space, the Musical Theatre West cast enjoyed the grand feeling that comes with enormous spectacle. Debbie Prutsman, nominated as Mrs. Lovett, has played the role many times in Southern California.

In this production she flourished under Remsberg’s staging and Glaudini’s musical direction. She expresses her admiration, “Calvin knows what he wants and how things should be done. He knows at a second’s notice what should be happening. It is like a language he is fluent in. But he will still listen to ideas. He is not such a purist he won’t entertain something different. I have so much fun with it. What’s wrong with me that I love this character? I trust Calvin and John so much because there are things that seem funky to me and they tell me I have to trust them. I have complete faith in their eyes and ears.”

While this year’s celebration of dueling Sweeneys is exciting, don’t expect the play to disappear from local stages for too long. As Remsberg explains, “Sweeney will always be a big show among actors because it is such rich material. It is the Mount Rushmore of musical theatre.”