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Are the new Sweeney Todd leads miscast? | Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster join Broadway revival
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Mickey Jo
Sutton Foster can just about fit through the door that Annaleigh Ashford barged open with her casting, but Aaron Tveit feels much more like Picatonia Award winner Out of the Hat. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional international freelance theatre critic based in the UK and I'm also a content creator on social media. You can find me here on my YouTube channel. I'm also on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and threads as mickeyjothetheater. And while the majority of the theatre that I see is here in London, I did get to travel to New York twice this year for two weeks at a time where I saw around about 40 shows, including the newly opened but currently running revival of Sweeney Todd at the Luntfontanne Theatre. I was hugely intrigued about this production when it was first announced. All of the creatives involved the seemingly unusual principal casting of Josh Groban, who was sort of a younger, more romantic take on Sweeney Todd, who didn't quite align with it vocally. And Annaleigh, despite having impressed with some other recent Sondheim performances, seemed like a really out of the box casting choice for Mrs. Lovett. Again, a little bit younger, a little bit of a different type ostensibly, but I went to go and see the show and I was broadly pretty impressed by it. In fact, I shared a review of the production here on my YouTube channel. You can go and watch that if you would like to. And the reason I'm talking about Sweeney Todd again now is because they have just announced who will be replacing these two stars in in the new year. So let's wind this all back and talk about all of the context that led up to this news announcement and why not Everyone is necessarily thrilled about the casting of these two Tony winners, of course. I'm so intrigued to hear your thoughts. Please comment with your feelings down below. Are you excited to see these two in these roles? Have you seen this revival already? What did you think of it? And if you enjoyed today's video, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for plenty more videos just like this coming very soon. I still have many more reviews from my recent Broadway trip to share with you all, so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any. Who knows, maybe I'll go back to Broadway next year to go and see Sweeney Todd again. I'm tempted, I shan't lie. But not everyone is. Because like I said, not everyone is thrilled with this casting. So let's talk about it. Who is taking over in Sweeney Todd and why do people have mixed feelings? So first up, like I'd already said, Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban are a different take on the roles in this production. We knew that from the moment that they were originally announced to be leading this revival. And Annalee in particular, though she's had more critical acclaim than Josh Groban and more people are coming out sor talking about her performance. She's had a little bit of backlash online in response specifically to her accent choices, Mrs. Lovett after the show's cast recording came out, because in particular, British audiences are critical of what they have described as a bizarre and ridiculous take on a cockney accent. And they're not wrong. But as I said on TikTok and Instagram, I'm here to tell you that within the context of her performance in the show, the accent is actually fine. I had no issue with it whatsoever because she's barely playing a human being on stage. She's making zany and wild physical comedy choices that you don't notice that she sounds somewhere between Gemma Collins from the Only Way is Essex and a space alien. But all of this is to walk us up to the fact that they were already considered unconventional for these roles. That reaction has been dwarfed, however, by how infinitely more unconventional their replacements are going to be. So let's talk about it then. Earlier today it was announced that Broadway stars, TV stars Tony Award winners Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster would be replacing Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. They'll be taking over for a 12 week limited run beginning February 9, 2024, which if anyone is counting, leaves a few weeks in between. The date it's already been announced that Annelie and Josh will be leaving the production and the date these two will be taking over. Is someone else going to be announced to fill that gap? Or will we just have the acclaimed performances of the first covers in those roles, one of whom is Gina Duvall, who has been standing by for not only Mrs. Lovett, but also the Beggar Woman, if you recognize her name. She was Diana in Diana the Musical not too long ago on Broadway and for Netflix. And it's I have heard excellent things about all the principal understudy performances in that show, but we also knew that Sutton Foster wouldn't be taking over straight away because she's going to be busy at the end of January for two weeks, appearing in New York City Centre, appearing in The New York City Centre Encores production of Once Upon a Mattress where she will be playing the role of Princess Winifred, a role first created wonderfully by Carol Burnett. So that's the first weird detail about this casting. The fact that they're not taking over straight away, like, I get it that Sutton isn't free, but the fact that that Aaron isn't going to take over until he can start with her. Like, as far as I'm concerned, they could have just announced that Gina Duvall would be taking over full time as Mrs. Lovett and I still would have thought that that was great news. But in any case, they will both be taking over on February 9th and we know a few months in advance that they're going to be in the show. What's interesting is they've just announced that Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, who was playing Tobias in this production and who I thought was robbed of a Tony Award nomination. By the way, Gaten was great in this show. He's leaving in November and they haven't announced who his repl is going to be. Now he's a supporting role in the show, so there's every possibility that it won't be a name. Perhaps they will just bump up who is currently the first cover and they will become the principal in the role. But it's interesting to me that that's happening so much sooner and we have no idea who's going to be taking over from him. Unless I have missed some sort of an announcement there. According to this playable article that still has yet to be announced. Yeah, he's only in the show through November 5th. That's so soon. That's next week. I assume an understudy is getting promoted. Now, when I was in New York recently, the chatter over cocktails and at various different events was these two name. First they were talking about Sutton Foster and then Aaron Tveit's name began to emerge. What was interesting to me was the dialogue was around whether or not Josh Groban would extend and the show seemed conditional on Groban, like they wouldn't extend the run without him. In any case, it seems that they have. We had an announcement, I think it was last week, that Josh and Annelie would be finishing, but that the show would be extending its run through the spring. But at the time the conversation was around who would replace Annaleigh Ashford and whether Josh would extend. So it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Annalee wasn't extending, which was a curiosity to me. I also have reason to believe that Annaleigh Ashford's previous Sondheim paramour Jake Gyllenhaal, who joined her for Sunday in the park with George, was approached about taking over from Josh Groban. And given what a musical theatre nerd we know him to be, I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't do it if he had the availability. So that tells us that he wasn't free Jake Gyllenhaal and that Annaleigh Ashford also isn't going to be free next year. Could we be getting finally a transfer of their production of Sunday in the park with George that was meant to be coming to the Savoy in 2020 but was dashed by Covid? We had been assuming that it was Gyllenhaal's availability that was making this production too difficult to reschedule. Was it Annaleigh Ashford, who was already committed to Sweeney Todd and they had to wait for her contract to end in that? Are they coming to bring Sunday to the West End next year? And are Taylor Swift fans going to riot because Gyllenhaal's in it? All of these are questions that we need to ask. But whatever the rumours were, Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit have now been announced to be taking over. Let me just the quickest backstory to both of those performers. So Sutton Foster was catapulted to Broadway star status and her first Tony Award nomination and win when she took over the role of Millie Dillmount out of Town with the musical Thoroughly Modern millie just over 20 years ago. She had this 42nd street esque Peggy Sawyer moment where she had been in the ensemble and she got promoted to be the principal performer in that role. And just like that, a star is born. She then went on to create a bunch of roles in new musicals including Jo in Little Women and Princess Fiona in Shrek and Inge in Young Frankenstein and Janet in the Drowsy Chaperone. She got a bunch of Tony Award nominations but had mostly made a name for herself appearing in new musicals. She hadn't done as many revivals. She had done a bit of Sondheim here and there. She played Nurse Faye Apple in a encore staging of Anyone Can Whistle Back in again like 2010. I think that was part of Sondheim's 80th birthday celebrations. She also played the role of the baker's wife in a staging of into the woods at the Hollywood bowl with an amazing all star cast. But from what I can remember, off the top of my head, she hasn't been put. But from what I can remember Just off the top of my head, she hasn't really been in a fully staged Sondheim production. And that's because, for the most part, Sondheim isn't writing roles that cater to Sutton Foster's skill set. She is a fantastic dancer. She gives you that high placement, belting thing. When she did finally appear in a revival, it was anything goes. She won another Tony Award for playing Reno Sweeney, but she's very much this, all singing, all dancing Broadway star and an underrated comedienne. Some of Sondheim's best roles are for slightly older actresses. Are we seeing Sutton Foster, just like Annley Ashford, has been about to enter her Sondheim era? I certainly hope so. Aaron Tveit, meanwhile, won his first Tony Award just after the Pandemic for originating the role of Christian in the stage adaptation of Moulin Rouge. Notably, he was the only nominee that year for Best Leading Actor in a musical. But it's fair to say he had paid his dues. He's been seen on Broadway previously as Gabe in the original production of Next to Normal, as Frank Abagnale Jr. In the original production of Catch Me if youf Can. And he has done Sondheim. I saw him in an off West End production of Assassins playing John Wilkes Booth. That was at the Mini Chocolate Factory, and he was terrific. To this day, I can remember the exact intonation with which he delivered the word assassinated. It was fantastic. He's also played Bobby in a regional American production of Company, and I'm probably forgetting just about a dozen other things that he's done. But that gives you a sense of who the two of them are as performers. They're really well known Broadway names. They're both very popular. They are veteran stage performers. Each of them has also done a little bit of television on the side. So while neither of them is quite a Josh Groban kind of a name, the combined star power of the two of them approaches what Josh and Annalee were able to achieve between them. But like I said, not everyone is thrilled with this casting or thinks that they are appropriately cast in this show. Let's talk about why that is so. I told you that Sutton Foster started her career by mostly doing new musicals. In more recent years, she has turned to revivals. Like I said, she did Anything Goes. She did Sweet Charity Off Broadway, and most recently, she was seen back on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre opposite Hugh Jackman in the Music man, where she played Marion Perroo, the Librarian, who is a classical soprano. Sutton Foster, meanwhile, an exceptional Broadway talent is not a soprano. This is a role that had previously been played by the likes of Barbara Cook and Rebecca Luker. And they, it's telling, they hadn't really shared that many other roles with Sutton Foster. I can't think of any off the top of my head. And though her and her co star Hugh Jackman did receive award nominations for their performances, there were also a fair amount of naysayers who said that she was vocally miscast in this production. Now, because she wasn't a soprano, they altered the keys of songs like My White Knight. And it does sound nothing like the original version of that song. There is an inherent different vocal quality with someone who is going to sing the end of that song in a mixed belt versus someone who's going to place it high in their soprano register. It changes both the character of the song and the character of the character that they are playing. It's an interesting conversation because I think Sutton Foster is one of the most talented people on the planet. And when she was announced for Once Upon a Mattress, I thought, yes, fantastic. She's such a brilliant comic actress that her playing Winifred Freedom, Once Upon a Mattress. Perfect casting. When she was announced for Charity and Sweet Charity, I thought that was perfect casting. She was the most incredible Fiona in Shrek that no one has ever been able to live up to since. As far as I'm concerned, however, Sutton Foster as Marion the Librarian in the Music man, it's not bad casting because she's not talented. It's bad casting because that so doesn't overlap with her skill set. Now, when it comes to Mrs. Lovett, I don't have as much of a vocal issue with this one. She is, like I said, an underrated comic character actress. So I'm very intrigued to see her doing something comparable to what Annaleigh Ashford brought to the role with that kind of zaniness. Do I think her cockney London British accent will be any better? No, no whatsoever. But I think she's going to bring the kind of magnetism on stage that it isn't really going to matter, just like it didn't matter with Annaleigh Ashford. The more conspicuous issue, as far as I'm concerned, is Aaron Tveit. Now, if we said that Sutton was miscast vocally, the Music Man, Aaron Tveit, feels miscast vocally for Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd is a bass baritone, and Aaron Tveit I would describe as a lyric tenor. He has this very high, very youthful tenor placement. The challenge for him, even when he played John Wilkes Booth, has always been the fact that he sounds so vocally pure and so vocally young that it's hard to inject angst and despair and darkness into that vocal. He sings with such a beautiful, charming levity. It's why he's always been these romantic and why he's always been this charismatic leading man. Sweeney Todd is not quite like that now. It's clear that Thomas Kail, the director's vision for this production, is to take someone who doesn't look like that kind of a Sweeney Todd to take a young, romantic, hopeful man who has been wearied by the experiences that he's had, like a Josh Groban. It's a romantic voice that's been turned to darkness. I just don't know whether Aaron To Vate is going to be able to achieve that vocally in a way that's healthy because, Sweetie Todd's key sit in such a different register and there is really no hope of transposing stuff to make it more comfortable for him to sing. Maybe he has a whole other area to his range that hasn't been displayed before in previous roles. I don't know. We've heard him singing mostly in that high tenor range. Maybe he can comfortably get to that lower stuff as well. It just isn't anything we've seen or heard him do previously. Whether he looks a little young for the role, whether this will require a different level of melodrama to the portrayals that he's given before, I don't know. I am intrigued about this combination of the two of them, but certainly a reaction I've seen and heard from a lot of people is that they have questions about this casting. But since we're here, let me tell you what I think. Now with the Music man, they made adaptations to that show's material in order to better showcase Sutton Foster. They changed the keys to suit her voice. There was tap dancing in the show with this one. They are both joining an already established and created revival halfway through, so they are not going to be making a handful of sizable adaptations to the material. That's not to say that things can't change. Titus Burgess, for example, recently joined Moulin Rouge as Harold Zidler and is singing in his comfortable vocal range, which is much higher than his predecessors in the role. For that reason, I believe he's singing it up the octave, which is easy enough to achieve because it means they don't have to actually change the keys of anything. Also, when Stephanie J. Block replaced Sutton Foster in the revival of Anything Goes, they adapted some of the choreography because she didn't have the same kind of over the head leg extension that Sutton Foster could do. Sutton Foster, I believe, is more of a dancer than Annaleigh Ashford, so maybe they'll put in a little bit more physical madness in this production. Annaleigh was already doing the most, so I don't know how Sutton can manage to do more than the most. But here's what I I have faith in Sutton Foster as a performer. I think she's going to sell that material. I think what I saw of her, Baker's Wife, was fantastic. I think there is proximity between that role and Mrs. Lovett. I think she has it within her to really deliver in the same kind of style with which Annaleigh Ashford did. I think she makes sense as a replacement to Annaleigh Ashford. My take on all of this, summed up in one sentence, is Sutton Foster can just about fit through the door that Annaleigh Ashford barged open with her casting. But Aaron Tveit feels much more like Picatonia Award winner Out of the Hat casting. He's been in and out of Moulin Rouge, so his name is still on everybody's lips around Broadway and it just feels like an easy solution. I am not convinced that he's necessarily going to make sense in this role. It's so incompatible with what we've seen him do before. Having seen him as John Wilkes Booth, that ought to be the closest thing to this role, probably closer than anything else he's done in his stage career previously to Sweeney Todd. And I still don't really see it. I definitely don't hear it vocally. It's not even the range that I'm most concerned about. It's the tone. It's the youthfulness of his tone. I don't know if he can cloud it with the necessary darkness and malevolence and grief that that character has to be characterized with. But I shan't labor the point anymore. Those are my thoughts about this casting. I am deeply intrigued to hear what you all think, so comment down below. What do you think about Sutton Foster and Aaron De Veit taking over in Sweeney Todd? Have you booked your tickets already? Are you planning to see this? Is anyone gonna go and see it? In those weeks in the middle when the covers presumably are going to be on, though nothing has officially been announced as far as I can tell. Let me know all of your thoughts. Thank you for watching today's video. I hope that you've enjoyed if you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for many more theatre themed videos coming very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching. 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