Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris Look to Leads in Fall Sweeney Todd Revival

Broadway.com has learned that Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris are expected to headline the upcoming Broadway revival of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler musical Sweeney Todd. The show, directed and designed by John Doyle, will also feature Mark Jacoby, Benjamin Magnuson and Lauren Molina.

LuPone and Cerveris starred together in concert presentations of the Sondheim musicals Sunday in the Park with George in which he played the title character and she played the supporting parts of Yvonne and Blair Daniels and Passion where she was Fosca and he was Giorgio. They are scheduled to appear together in the composer's Anyone Can Whistle at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois on August 26, 2005. They also both recently participated in the Children and Art concert at the New Amsterdam Theatre, which was held as a tribute to Sondheim on the eve of his 75th birthday. At the event LuPone sang Sweeney Todd's "A Little Priest" with the show's original Broadway star, George Hearn.

LuPone previously took on the role of Mrs. Lovett opposite Hearn in a concert mounting of Sweeney Todd that was first produced by the New York Philharmonic and was later presented by the San Francisco Symphony and Ravinia Festival. The show was broadcast on PBS and is available on DVD. The past four summers she has performed in Sondheim musicals at the Ravinia Festival. In addition to the aforementioned roles in Sunday in the Park with George, Passion and Sweeney Todd, she played Desiree Armfeld in a mounting of A Little Night Music there. LuPone is a Broadway legend, thanks mostly to her work in musicals. She won a 1980 Tony Award for her performance in Evita. Her other musical credits on the Great White Way include The Beggar's Opera, The Robber Bridegroom for which she earned a Featured Actress Tony nomination, Working, Oliver! and Anything Goes which netted her a 1988 Best Actress Tony nomination. However her last appearance in a fully-staged production of a musical was all the way back in 1993 when she starred in Sunset Boulevard in the West End. Since then she has only appeared in concert mountings of shows including the Ravinia entries, her own solo pieces and Encores! mountings of Pal Joey and Can-Can. She was last featured on Broadway in the 2001 revival of the play Noises Off.

Cerveris won a 2004 Tony Award for his portrayal of John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim's Assassins. He previously earned a Tony nomination and a Theatre World Award for his portrayal of the title character, a deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard, in The Who's Tommy. He also appeared on Broadway in Titanic. His off-Broadway credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Total Eclipse, Abingdon Square, Life is a Dream, Macbeth, The Games, Fifth of July and Wintertime.

Jacoby, who will play the Judge in Sweeney Todd, appeared in the 1992 concert Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall as did LuPone. He won a 1986 Theatre World Award for his performance in Sweet Charity and was nominated for a 1995 Tony Award for his work in Show Boat. He also appeared on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera, Grand Hotel, Ragtime and Man of La Mancha. His other theatrical credits include Enter the Guardsmen off-Broadway for which he received a Drama Desk nomination and a national tour of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Magnuson, a trained cellist, will receive a BFA in Musical Theater this spring from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. At the school, he has played Joe Josephson in Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, Frank Drecker in Working, the Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Judge Pitkin in On The Town and Dr. Jafar Barensteiner in A New Brain. His other theatrical credits include mountings of The Fantasticks, My Fair Lady, Barnum, Peter Pan, Children of Eden and River of Freedom. He is set to play Anthony in Sweeney Todd.

Molina, who studied musical theater at the University of Michigan, is taking on the role of Todd's daughter Johanna. Her New York stage credits include the York Theatre Company's Musicals in Mufti presentation of Henry, Sweet Henry and Meet Me in St. Louis at the 45th Street Theatre. Other theatrical credits include Fiddler on the Roof, Marvin's Room, Man of La Mancha, Once Upon a Mattress, Patience and Saving Anne in which she played the title character of Anne Frank.

Sweeney Todd tells the tale of the "demon barber of Fleet Street," fresh out of jail for a crime he did not commit, who cooks up a macabre revenge scheme with his dazzlingly demented accomplice, Mrs. Lovett.

This revival of the tuner is aiming for a September start and mid-October opening at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, recently vacated by Good Vibrations.

A production spokesperson could not confirm any casting for the musical. Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris Look to Leads in Fall Sweeney Todd Revival Michael Cerveris Michael Cerveris