Capital Playhouse

Sweeney Todd

Set Design (and Direction) by Jon Ares.

October 1999.

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Stephen Sondheim & Hugh Wheeler. Directed by Jon Ares, Music Direction by Troy Arnold Fisher, Choreography by Amanda Blair Ellis., and Costume Design by Misha, and featuring Jeff Kingsbury as Sweeney Todd and Jennie May Donnell as Mr. Lovett.

These are the computer-rendered images of the set as-designed. At this time I have no pictures of the realized set, partly because it was not fully-realized, as designed, due to various reasons. But — the essence was there.

The overall feeling is one of the Industrial Revolution in London after the turn of the (19th) century — the trusswork of the theatre space was utilized with the look. The set was filled with I-beams of iron (wood, actually) with layers of rust and rivets. Weathered wood was also a predominant element, as was the vacuu-form brick on the Stage Left factory building.

The upstage alley featured a factory-like skylight that was backlit (black tricot, with 20mil Visqueen over that — worked great). The orchestra was SR behind the unit with the grills. (The grills were both for acoustic reasons, as well as a playing area for Fogg’s Asylum inmates. The grills were backed with black tricot.)