Video: SWEENEY TODD Opening Night Brings Out Lin-Manuel Miranda, Len Cariou And More!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World, Steven Sondheim, and U. Wheeler's musical masterpiece, Sweeney Todd is back

Under the direction of Thomas Cale, he welcomes back to Broadway, Josh Grobin and Annalie Ashford, and we're here to celebrate with the first-nighters

You must have so many incredible memories. Would you share a wonderful memory of doing the original production of Sweeney Todd

It was a wonderful opening night, and a lot of people didn't think that it was ever going to have

So when it did, we blew the roof off the place. And it was history-making

And that's really what I remember more than anything. And it was, you know, I was in it for a year

And Angela and I were very proud to have done it for that long

Just his history. Yes, right here. We're still here. We're still here

God damn it. His fondest memories were of the original. Victor, what are yours of the original production of playing Antony

I can tell you, walking onto the set, as he was doing, these are my friends, and I interrupted him

And it was one of the most, and I never, every time I was down there, I thought, that is the most terrifying man I've ever seen in my life

And I love him so much, and I just think he is

you know, the greatest. Because he was just saying nobody knew what Sweeney Todd was going to be

until that incredible opening night you all had at the Uris Theater. That's right

It was it was we didn nobody knew I mean we all believed that we had something remarkable But until I mean when we first heard the score

when Steve played it the first time for all of us, and we were just like, oh my God

And then, and then we had to do it. That was the other thing

So, no, it was, you know, as I describe it as the, you know

it was life-changing for all of us, I think. For sure. Sharing the stage with Angela Lansbury

I asked him how wonderful that was for both of you. You know, it's almost too hard to talk about

Because they led the company. I learned everything I ever needed to know about how to lead a company from these two

And Angela and Lenn were the most welcoming. There was never, it was a really, I can say this without any equivocation

It was one of them happiest groups of people in one of the darkest comedies, musical comedies ever written

But we had a ball, didn't we? Yeah, we did. We did

How excited are you to be here tonight for your friends in this tonight, working on this

I'm excited for Tommy and Lack, obviously. I'm excited for Steve Sondheim

to hear his original orchestrations and Jonathan Tunex, incredible orchestrations over again

And I'm excited for a new generation of theatergoers to fall in love with Sweeney

I was here Friday night to watch Alex Lackamore raise his baton for the 26-piece orchestra with Jonathan Tunis orchestrations

first time heard on Broadway since 1979. You're going to make me cry in this interview, but yeah, it's amazing

And you know this was one of the last shows Steve gave his blessing to You know I remember Tommy talking to him and then him getting their blessing to do this production We saw a reading of this the week after Steve passed

And so it just feels like another fulfillment of his incredible legacy

I love this. Look at you. This is what I was waiting on. I was like, this came in the mail just now

Come into the door. It's like freshly wet. That is the outfit of the eye

I had to. I had to. Come on. I have a history with this show. so I was like, I got to show my support in some way

Okay. What is it like singing the role of Sweeney Tard? It is one of the most demanding roles ever

But I always call it, like, Sondheim is the Shakespeare or musical theater

and I feel like this is like the hamlet of musical theater. And all the baritones always want to do this show

so I can't wait to hear Josh Grobin's voice in this music

Annelia, Ashford. Annalie, I mean... Annalie, Annalee. Oh, man. It's going to be such a great show. Yeah

I'm so excited. I love him. a Broadway opening, and it's so lovely to come and support people

And also, like, this incredible show we're hearing. It's full orchestra for the first time since the premiere

I think it's so exciting. When I was 18 years old, one of my early jobs in New York

I was a bartender at the Uris Theater, which is now the Gershwin

I started when the King and I was there with Ull Brenner and Consist Towers. That left, and Sweeney Todd came in

And I saw every single performance of Sweeney Todd, including when Angela left and Dorothy Laughan

to go for us. That's right. Well, you know, I'm a huge

Sondheim fan. I've been lucky enough to to work with him, you know, a couple

times and Into the Woods and Sano and Sondheim, but also I've seen, I saw Norm when he was Sweeney and it's just his, one of

his best pieces of course I think Into the Woods is my fave but one of his best pieces and it just a pleasure to see it come back again with all the energy as usual How excited are you two to be here tonight

I can't wait. I've been looking forward to this forever. And I'm so excited to see Josh and the whole company. Yeah. Yeah

My, you know, my ex-husband now. Can't wait. Can't wait to see him

What's it like living in the world of Sontai and singing his scores

I feel like one of the most fortunate and blessed human beings. human beings that I've gotten to be in two Sondheim shows so far in my career

And that I'm going off to London very soon to do old friends, which is all Sondheim

wall to wall with Bernadette Peters and directed by Matthew Bourne and Julian McKenzie

So it's going to be a major Sondheim autumn for me. So I'm really looking forward to it

I am so excited. This has been so long and coming, and we've been working on this so hard

and this is the most amazing team of people. This is my producing partner, Benji Leon

and we couldn't be more happy to be here celebrating with everybody. I am beyond excited because I've come full circle

I actually was a marketing assistant on the original in 1979. So to come back as part of the producing team

is just unbelievably surreal. So when you found out that you were going to musical stage this show

like what went through your mind? It's going to be tricky. It's a song time

He doesn't give you a dance break and it's tight, structured stuff and if you throw something

at it, it just slides off. So you've got to be clever and subtle and figure it out

It's like a puzzle. Yeah. So it takes a while, but once you've lined it up, he gives you all the tools you need

So yeah, hard and then simple