Theatre Under the Stars' 'Sweeney Todd' brings blood, beauty to Houston stage

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The blood and beauty will continue to flow this week at the Hobby Center with Theatre Under the Stars' (TUTS) original production of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

Winner of eight Tony Awards, Sweeney takes place in the dark corners of 19th century England and tells the tale of a vengeful barber whose love for a dispossessed daughter has pushed him over the edge. Todd (Danny Rothman) falls in with a struggling pie shop owner (Mrs. Lovett, played by Sally Wilfert) to exact revenge on his enemies and society by murdering his customers in the barber chair and then disposing of them in meat pies that Lovett then sells to an eager mass public.

The story, along with Sondheim's chilling score, is a tale of woe, humor of the darkest variety, and a scathing commentary on an over-industrialized urban society of the late 19th century. "There's no place like London," Todd hails at the outset of the show upon his return to the city after years in exile.

"It's just overwhelmingly beautiful and gorgeous, but it goes places you don't think it's going to go. It really just has every single color you could imagine and want, and things you've never heard before," Rothman told ABC13 in an interview.

"It's fantastic to be at the Hobby Center and with TUTS. The amount of creativity and expression the artists are allowed to have at TUTS is unlike any other," Wilfert said of the run in Houston.

Watch the full conversation in the video above. ABC13 is an official supporter of Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS). For information and tickets, go to tuts.com.

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