Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Rosetint Community Theatre
ACES Educational Center for the Arts
55 Audubon St.
New Haven
Through Sept. 19, 2026
If these are not professionals, who is?
That thought kept running through my head Friday night as Rosetint Community Theatre opened Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Before the show, Artistic Director Tyler Harding reminded the audience that Rosetint is largely volunteer-run (over 60 people helped with Sweeney), that its performers are not professionals and that the company itself has existed for only 10 months.
Then the music started.
Within minutes, that disclaimer felt almost absurd.
The cast was acting acting. An 18-piece orchestra surged beneath Stephen Sondheim’s score. Bodies disappeared down a functional chute in the stage. The ensemble swept across the set in striking cream-colored costumes, singing and moving with the kind of full-bodied commitment that pulled you into each song as they unfolded the bloody legend of Sweeney Todd.
Their outsized talent belied the company’s infancy.
Ethan Sachs established that standard almost immediately as Sweeney Todd, seeping anguish across the stage from the moment he opened his mouth. He carried himself like a man hollowed out by grief and consumed by revenge. Ashley Hamel’s Mrs. Lovett countered his darkness with delicious comic energy, finding humor in even the production’s most macabre moments.
Together, they established the peculiar balancing act that makes Sweeney Todd work: horror and hilarity, sometimes arriving within seconds of each other.
Even the supporting characters arrived so fully formed that there seemed to be no such thing as a throwaway role.
And somewhere amid all the murder, madness and meat pies, there was one scene that made me scoff.
The sailor Anthony (Colin Anderson) was attempting to woo Johanna (Denise Wray), Todd’s long-lost daughter, while she was having a meltdown for the ages.
She was literally singing about ending her life with poison rather than marrying her lecherous guardian, and homeboy was over there insisting he had a plan.
The plan?
Kiss me! he sang.
Just like a man, I said to myself.
When fictional characters have you talking back at them, you know you are engulfed in a performance.
Wray and Anderson played Johanna and Anthony with an earnestness that never grated. Wray brought Johanna’s desperation to life by balancing fragility with flashes of defiance. Even amid the character’s increasingly dire circumstances, she never allowed Johanna to become merely pitiable. Anderson, meanwhile, gave Anthony an earnest, almost boyish sincerity that made his persistence feel more lovestruck than foolish.
Together, they created a convincing contrast: Johanna spiraling under the weight of her confinement while Anthony barreled forward with the unshakable optimism of someone certain that love could solve everything.
Anderson and Wray deftly sang around one another, their lovely counter melodies creating a pleasant tension and rich interplay.
Elsewhere, Judge Turpin (Casey Pickett) and his minion Beadle Bamford (Brennan Cummings) were perfectly domineering and gross; the latter landed more on the endearingly annoying side of villainy. Bamford’s piano solo scene had us all laughing aloud, providing one of the evening’s most unexpected comic breaks.
Beggar Woman (Marissa Nassar) and the young ward Tobias Ragg (Ellie Desautels) brought a vulnerability to the stage that made their eventual fates all the more devastating. Sebastián Colón Peréz, meanwhile, tore through the role of Adolfo Pirelli with theatrical swagger, playing the supposed Italian barber as a flamboyant whirlwind of comic relief and deception. An Irishman masquerading as Italian, he brushed off questions of authenticity with perhaps the most practical explanation possible: “Name is professional.”
The production’s polish extended well beyond the performances.
The first time Todd dumped a body down the hatch in the floor, I jumped. I was not expecting a functional slide on stage. The stage set up was elaborate but not overly so – it was made up of wooden blocks in primary shapes that the cast configured throughout the evening to create different settings. Above them hung bespoke wooden signs marking Sweeney Todd’s shop, the insane asylum and assorted businesses, giving the space a quaint feeling of Victorian London.
And then there was the orchestra.
Rather than overpowering the performers, the 18 musicians remained attentive to the action, swelling beneath moments of terror and tenderness. They gave Sondheim’s already intricate score an additional emotional force while still allowing the actors’ voices and performances to remain at the center.
Again, I found myself asking: If this is not professional, what is?
By the final number, the distinction hardly seemed to matter.
It’s a wonder the place wasn’t a bloody mess after the cast sang their last number. They wrenched their hearts from their chests and left it on that stage Friday night.
I cannot wait to see what they do in another 10 months.
Visit Rosetint Community Theatre’s website for tickets and to find out what else they have in store.
