‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ Broadway Review: Josh Groban & Annaleigh Ashford Triumph In Sondheim Masterpiece

With two weeks left in its 35-year Broadway run, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera posted a huge box office gross last week of $3,247,106, nearly 10% of Broadway’s total take for the seven-day period ending April 2.

Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera had yet another smashing, down-to-the-wire week at the Majestic, grossing more than $3 million for the second consecutive week as the countdown to its April 16 closing continues.

Jessica Chastain has found her next big project.

Earlier this year, folks were obsessed over the Apple TV+ ads featuring Timothee Chalamet, which basically feature the actor lamenting over the fact that nearly every A-list actor has a project in the works for the streamer except him. Well, poor Timmy isn’t going to be happy to learn that Jessica Chastain is the latest to get an Apple TV+ project.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Jessica Chastain will star in the eight-episode limited series “The Savant” at Apple, Variety has learned. The series is inspired by a true story published in Cosmopolitan in August 2019. Exact plot details for the series are being kept under wraps, but the Cosmopolitan article tells the story of a real woman who has come to be known as “the Savant” as she infiltrates hate groups online to help stop large-scale public attacks. The series hails from Fifth Season and Anonymous Content. Melissa James Gibson (“Anatomy of a Scandal,” “The Americans”) will serve as writer, executive producer, and showrunner under her overall deal with Fifth Season. Matthew Heineman (“A Private War,” “Retrograde”) will direct and executive produce. Chastain will executive produce in addition to starring via Freckle Films. Kelly Carmichael of Freckle Films also executive produces along with Jessica Giles, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan. Brian Madden, senior VP of development for Hearst Magazines, will produce. Andrea Stanley, writer of the original Cosmopolitan feature, will consult.

Fresh from playing country music star Tammy Wynette, Jessica Chastain is swapping the microphone for a laptop.

The Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd is officially open!

Stephen Sondheim’s horror-musical in which throats are gruesomely slashed and cannibalism is positively hilarious. 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. At the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W.

Naveen Kumar The cannibalist startup in “Sweeney Todd” kills two birds: For Sweeney, the ruined barber who holds a grudge as steadily as he does a blade, it means turning enemies into actual mincemeat. For Mrs. Lovett, who laments that alley cats were too quick and meager to carve up anyway — well, it’s a living, innit love?  Slitting throats and baking bodies into pies is a wild and wicked business. But in the stately and star-filled revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s macabre 1979 musical that opened on Broadway Sunday night, the people-to-pastries pipeline quickly assumes a grim air of mundanity.  For its stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, this lushly orchestrated and opera-scale production, from “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, proves a magnificent showcase for their respective, jaw-dropping talents. Groban’s weighted-blanket baritone makes the prospect of reclining in his company and never waking up again seem like a great way to go. And Ashford’s fleet, agile instinct for comedy, which earned her a Tony Award for “You Can’t Take It With You,” is like a dippy bird for dopamine. But only one of them is a genuine thrill.

A Doll’s House.Jamie Lloyd directs a figurative and literal bare-bones version that has been pruned with careful thought by Amy Herzog. Herzog herself is making great strides in the American theater, having been a Pulitzer prize finalist and earning numerous other accolades.With A Doll’s House, she was tasked with a huge undertaking: trim excess from a classic play.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Pictured: Casting directors Katja Zarolinski and Geoff Josselson of JZ Casting. This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. Casting director Geoff Josselson just checked off a major bucket list item. When he was asked what show he dreamed of casting, he would say “Into the Woods.” And just last year, working with Telsey Casting, Josselson was part of the team that assembled the heralded Broadway revival starring Sara Bareilles, Brian D’Arcy James and Joshua Henry. Josselson is on a bit of a Stephen Sondheim spree — with Telsey he also helped cast the new production of “Sweeney Todd,” starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. And he and his partner at JZ Casting, Katja Zarolinski, just collaborated for the first time with the Pasadena Playhouse to cast “A Little Night Music,” playing at the theater April 25-May 1. 

an unfurnished “Doll’s House” starring Oscar winner Jessica Chastain (top ticket $299), which features only a few chairs positioned on a turntable that’s lit like a hospital broom closet. The no-frills revival of the musical “Parade” (top ticket $297), which began as a City Center Encores concert, has just a raised platform surrounded by lamps and more chairs. The return of the Bob Fosse revue “Dancin’” (top ticket $297) has a projection screen and a few metal towers — appropriate for jazz hands, but flimsy all the same.“Into the Woods,” another City Center concert that has since closed at the St. James Theater and gone on tour, had some wooden steps and simple birch tree trunks, because the main event was its sizable 15-person orchestra and stars such as Sara Bareilles and Patina Miller.Meanwhile, “& Juliet” (top ticket $323), a jukebox musical comedy from London featuring Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys songs, is glitzier than the above, goes to multiple locales and features garish lighting, but is still designed to look like a bricky rehearsal space.Everywhere you look, there’s nothing.That’s not to say these shows are all bad.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Stephen Sondheim’s final musical “Here We Are” is hitting the stage in the fall. The legendary musical theater figure, who composed “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Follies,” “Sweeney Todd” and countless other Broadway classics, died in 2021 at the age of 91. The musical, formerly known as “Square One,” was in the works prior to his death and took inspiration from two Luis Buñuel films, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Joe Mantello, whose credits include Sondheim’s “Assassins,” as well as “Wicked” and “Take Me Out,” is directing “Here We Are.” The strictly limited engagement will begin September 2023 in The Shed’s Griffin Theater, an Off-Broadway venue near Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood. Casting will be announced soon.

A raft of Broadway’s recent arrivals led by Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street helped push the industry’s total box office last week to $28,638,821, up 13.8% from the previous week. Total attendance was up commensurately to 229,771.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Michelle Yeoh’s mother and family broke down in tears during the 2023 Oscars telecast, where Yeoh was awarded the best actress prize for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Yeoh’s victory made her the first Asian lead actress winner in Oscars history and only the second woman of color to win the category (Halle Berry, who presented Yeoh with the Oscar alongside Jessica Chastain, was the first for “Monster’s Ball”). The actress’ mom, Janet Yeoh, and other family members watched the Oscars live in Malaysia and cheered, wept and screamed when Michelle’s name was called as the winner. “I so love my daughter and she has made Malaysia proud,” Janet Yeoh told a news conference after her Oscars viewing party in Kuala Lumpur (via Associated Press). “Malaysia Boleh (Malaysia Can)!”

Joshua Jackson caught up with his Dawson’s Creek costar Michelle Williams!

Jessica Chastain seemed to be the only star to wear a protective face mask at the Oscars 2023, which was hosted by late night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, and fans praised the actress for her decision. The Help actress, 45, wore a stunning silver rhinestone dress as she attended the star-studded event, which saw her present Best Actress alongside Halle Berry, 56. Host Jimmy Kimmel, 55, approached Jessica during his comedic segment to ask her what it was like working with her co-star Matt Damon, 52, in their 2015 film The Martian.

Jessica Chastain is being praised for wearing a mask inside the theater at the Oscars!

Halle Berry and Jessica Chastain are doing double duty at the 2023 Oscars!On Sunday, ET's Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier spoke to the pair on the red carpet at the 95th Academy Awards, where Chastain revealed that they are presenting the Oscars for both Best Actor and Best Actress  -- the latter of which would've been Will Smith's job had the now infamous Oscars slap not occurred. «I've been so excited since they told me we were gonna present together,» Chastain gushed before revealing which category she and Berry would be presenting. «Best Actor and Actress,» she continued. «I'm a little nervous, because I'm not as graceful as she is. And the whole thing -- we have to walk by ourselves.

Jessica Chastain singlehandedly makes a case for red and green being a perfect combination outside the holidays while posing on the red carpet at the 2023 Oscars on Sunday (March 12).