Gallery • 6 Photos

Julia Barton

Playing Mrs. Lovett, senior Caroline Conners cries in despair over her unappealing pies that she bakes to Jack Morris, who played Mr. Sweeney Todd.

From an innocent haircut to a final breath: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street came to Midtown the last two weekends (March 21-23 and 28-29) in the spring production of Sweeney Todd. The show was performed five times, bringing fear and anticipation to each audience.

The show was initially set to take the stage in 2020, until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closing of schools and school-sanctioned events. The 2025 cast and crew brought it to life five years later, allowing students to enjoy what they missed. 

“It was the best thing I’ve ever been in Midtown,” senior Caroline Conners, who played Mrs. Lovett said. “I’ve never been with a group as focused. Everybody was so determined to make it the best it could possibly be.”

The story involved a murderous barber and a fall-out baker joining forces, killing the barber’s enemies and the baker turning them into delicious pies to revive her business.

“The storyline is really captivating and I think its complexity drew the watchers in,” Conners said. “It’s very tense the entire time and the plot twists were crazy. It was exciting to see how the crowd would react each time.”

The show was highly technical, with props and set pieces being the key factor in creating the dramatic moments that shocked the audience. The most notable of these was the trapdoor chair, where each victim of Mr. Sweeney Todd would fall through and disappear after facing their clean cut death.

“The props played a major role in making the show as exciting as it came out,” crew chief junior Kate Krugman said. “The first time a victim fell through the trapdoor for each show I could hear the reactions of the crowd from backstage.”

The show was an exciting change of pace; following the light-hearted production of Matilda in the winter, Sweeney Todd brought an eerie atmosphere to the Midtown theater.

“Sweeney Todd was definitely one of my favorite  shows at Midtown yet,” junior Sloane Crisler said. “It was nothing like anything we’ve done super recently and I really liked how unique the storyline was. No one expected a murderous barber baking people into pies.”