It is actually surprising that the revival of Stephen Sondheim's classical musical Sweeney Todd, which stars Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone, was nominated for this year's Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and won for Best Direction of a Musical for John Doyle and Best Orchestrations, done by Sarah Travis. It's not because the show is brooding and sinister, although that could be considered. After all, it tells the tale of a man who seeks revenge on the judge who unfairly imprisoned him, resulting in a bloody path of retribution via a barbershop that also leads to a reinvention of the idea of "mystery meat," thanks to a pie-making accomplice. But this unorthodox production, which features ten actors who also sing and play instruments and who often do not face each other during conversations, is unusually abstract for the Great White Way. The fact that it won two Tonys is an artistic triumph, and the fact that it continues to do well months after it opened is a testament to an audience that wants to see something dark, unusual and completely different than a huge production with lots of glitzy musical numbers. FOH engineer Christopher Cronin has been with Sweeney Todd since it opened, and he speaks about the challenges of a show where every cast member serves multiple functions, both visually and aurally.
FOH: This seems like a more abstract version of the Sweeney Todd, doesn't it?
Christopher Cronin: I prefer to think of it less as an abstract version and more of a "stripped-down to its bare essentials" version. Both the director John Doyle, and specifically writer/composer Stephen Sondheim, have stated that Sondheim originally wrote it as a chamber piece. He and Harold Prince came to that original mammoth production by chance. All the stars lined up–"We have a bunch of money, a really big space, and we could make a big statement with this." So it was originally written as a smaller piece.
There are no musicians in the pit, correct?
No, there's nobody in the pit. There are ten cast members, and they make every sound that happens. There is an A/B stereo system, and it's an essential feature of the design, so everywhere there's a speaker there is an A and B Speaker. The main cluster is made up of Meyer CQ-2s and CQ-1s. There are many locations served by d&b E3s– cross-lower, cross-mid on both sides. Front fills are Meyer MM4s. Under balcony delays are Meyer UPMs and also MM4s. For surround speakers, there are multi-way surround speakers, either EAW JF60s or 80s.
What do you think were the biggest challenges for sound designer Dan Moses Schreier on this show, especially with actors who also play instruments?
I think frankly the biggest challenge was the unknown. Dan had never seen John Doyle's production. He originally got to see a videotape of it, but nobody really knew how anything was going to work out. We knew that there were going to be ten people playing instruments onstage, and throughout the rehearsal process who played what instrument where and when changed with regularity. So dealing with the unknown was the most difficult challenge. And then after that both Dan and Sarah Travis worked very, very hard and worked very well together. If there was a violin note sticking out that we couldn't push back in, or if there was one that needed to be pulled out that we couldn't pull out, if what one person was trying to do wasn't working, the other would try to do something with the musician. They worked together quite a bit on that process.
The music supervisor was Sarah Travis and the resident music supervisor was David Loud. Why the distinct titles?
Sarah was the orchestrator from the U.K., and since she doesn't live here she was a music supervisor. Then David Loud provided onsite music supervision, note taking and keeping the active musicians playing as sharp as they would want to be.
What kind of mics are you using?
The vocals mics are a mixture of Countryman B6s and DPA 4061s. All the transmitters are Sennheiser 5012s with 1046 rack receivers.
Which performers also have microphones for their instruments?
Manoel Felciano wears two microphones, one of which does both a violin and the vocal, and the other which does clarinet. Diana Di- Marzio, who plays the clarinet throughout, has two microphones, one for her vocal and one for her clarinet. Their vocal mics are all on their heads, worn in their hair, and her clarinet mic is also down her sleeve. A wrist mic, basically.
Manoel's second mic is placed within his bandages, correct?
His main vocal mic is worn on his head and the other one is down his sleeve, clipped to some bandages. We don't really worry about ruffling with the mics in their clothes, because, quite frankly, the amount that any of the instruments is actually amplified isn't that much. It's mostly used just to brighten up the sound and for punctuation for big orchestral moments, so they're not turned up so loud that you hear ruffling. It's not your typically loud, big Broadway musical. It's a very quiet show. John was very specific about wanting to force the audience to lean forward a little bit and engage in the performance a little bit more than you might otherwise do when you go to a big Broadway show where the sound is quite loud and just washes over you.
The cellos have mics on them, and the bass has a mic on it. Benjamin Magnuson plays the cello and has his vocal mic. Then he carries the cello around all day with a mic on it, too. Donna Lynne Champlin, who plays Pirelli, might actually be the winner for most mics because she carries around the accordion, which has a mic on it. She wears two mics, one for her vocal and one over her ear for her flute, which also happens to double as a hat mic when she wears a top hat.
So the show is simple and complicated at the same time, isn't it?
Exactly. There's not a whole lot of processing out in front. There's some tube compression used on a couple of the voices, and a little compression on the bass, but that's really about it.
There is some live processing used. When one of the characters goes in the basement of the pie shop, there is an echo effect heard.
We use quite a substantial amount of Lexicon reverb. We have a 960 unit that we use for both the surround processing, for the big house echo, and then also for regular vocal and band reverb.
There's also a maniacal, musical sound effect every time someone gets slashed.
There's a whistle that plays and we open up into surround reverb. I'm not even sure what kind of whistle it is. It might be a train conductor's whistle. It's bloody loud, put it that way. So every time somebody gets their throat slashed, Alex Gemignani, who plays The Beadle, is mostly the whistle-blower. It's a very loud, shrill, piercing whistle that's fed to reverb, so it feels enveloping.
How much has this show evolved since it started last October?
Quite frankly, it hasn't really evolved that much. It's been very, very consistent. I would say far more consistent than probably any other Broadway musical I've worked on. We haven't lost any players yet. I can probably count on two hands the number of times any player has been out and an understudy on. I think the performances have maybe evolved a little bit in that Patti and Michael both really enjoy each other on stage, enjoy trying some new things here and there, and let character develop somewhat.
Overall it's been quite an adventure, hasn't it?
It's a very adventurous show. There are sections of it that are very quick and difficult to mix because there are a lot of people who will literally play trumpet in one measure and be singing in the next.
So when Sondheim wrote the original story, he wanted to be more abstract, at what point did it become bigger?
I guess when he first wrote it, he maybe wasn't intending for a three-person chorus and 26-piece orchestra. Incidentally, Alex's father, Paul Gemignani, was the original music director in 1980. So our Beadle, who's 26 years old, was born right around Sweeney Todd time. He was a couple years old when his father was first working on it.
What does Sondheim think of the show?
Steve has been very, very involved, very on board, and very excited about this production and its uniqueness. He's thrilled with that.
