Steve Parkin (Sweeney Todd) and Christy Montesdeoca (Mrs. Lovett). Photo by Rodney Smith/Tempus Fugit Designs
ACT Goes Macabre
This month, Asheville Community Theatre (ACT) opens its 71st season with the dark and bloody musical, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. The sinister play opens Friday, October 7, and runs through October 30.
Directed by Jerry Crouch with music direction by Lenora Thom, Sweeney Todd paints a portrait of evil accompanied by a Tony Award-winning musical score.
Sweeney Todd was unjustly imprisoned for years by a corrupt judge. When he returns to England, his need for revenge turns his new barbershop into a house of murder. His downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, owns a failing pie shop and becomes his accomplice, with the newest ingredient in her meat pies making people line up along the streets of London.
Crouch and Thom return to helm Sweeney Todd. Past partnerships include Annie, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys & Dolls, Annie Get Your Gun and Cabaret. Sixteen years after meeting at ACT, the “musical marriage made in heaven” is still going strong. They have clocked in over one hundred musical productions between them.
“With Lenora at the musical helm,” Crouch says, “who could ask for anything more?” They agree that manic, multi-tasking organizational skills have served them well over the years, and they are both honored to be such a large part of ACT’s community and history. “I am thrilled to be working with Jerry again,” Thom says. ”No one can direct blockbusters at ACT better than he can.”
Many of the actors are, however, working together for the first time. About half of the cast is new to the ACT stage, including Steve Parkin playing the title role of Sweeney Todd.
Parkin has a background in opera and theatre and describes this as his own “bucket list dream role.” Christy Montesdeoca made her ACT debut last spring in The Man Who Came to Dinner; she is making her ACT musical debut as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
“The beauty of community theatre is that our casts are often made up of an amalgam of newcomers and veterans,” Jenny Bunn, ACT marketing director, says. “Out of 34 actors in Sweeney Todd, 18 have never been onstage at ACT before!”
Performances are Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors and students and $15 for children. For more information about Sweeney Todd or Asheville Community Theatre, visit ashevilletheatre.org. Tickets are available online, by phone at 828.254.1320 or in person at the ACT Box Office located at 35 East Walnut Street.
