Hi, gang. I’m Gibson, and today I’m here to apologize to those decrying the rumored lack of POC leads in the forthcoming Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd because… I think this is partially my fault, and it’s never fun feeling in any way responsible for establishment stupidity. (Granted, the B’way profit algorithm, attempted theft of concept, and skittish producers likely played a part in the mishegas too.) I’ll explain.

As a working producer (and aspiring director), as this blog can attest, I’ve developed ideas for many shows over the years, and Sweeney Todd is one. (Example: for a time, I was keen to do a Marat/Sade-styled revival which put John Doyle’s main conceit front and center minus instruments. For those who missed it amid the gimmicks, the plot was played as a trauma flashback loop in Toby’s mind while confined to an asylum after the show’s events, substituting fellow inmates and doctors for the characters. A strong notion, done to death since. But I digress.)

Back in 2018, I was bullshitting with fellow artist @jacksonjuniper, as one does, and he pitched me on a Sweeney reimagining with black barbershop culture in mind, “maybe setting it around the Harlem Renaissance era,” with “a white Turpin still.” And the wheels began turning. I’d read Chris Bond’s foreword to the published script where he described having some attendees of the Judge’s ball also be pie shop customers in his production, likening them to “white folks slumming it in Harlem,” and had the same thought. One of my cardinal rules: if more than one person thinks of a potentially explosive idea, it has legs.

As I mulled it over and discussed the notion some more with my resident sounding board — and podcast co-host — Megan Lerseth over the next few years, it took a more concrete shape: the visual setting (though still called “London”) would be Jazz/Blues Age New Orleans, in the waning days of Prohibition, circa the 1930s. The score would have new arrangements, reflecting — you guessed it — the sounds of that era. (See: this tweet of mine, which was about creating a proof-of-concept playlist at a later date to accompany an already fleshed-out proposal, at a time when wheels were already turning on the official “Plan B,” but I hoped I could build buzz about my notion instead.) At least in my head, the cast would be primarily black or at least POC, with a white Judge, a white Beadle, and some “polite society” among the Judge’s fellow partiers (who later become Lovett’s customers when it’s chic for the gentry to rub shoulders with the poor at the hottest pie shop).

Our goal was to take Hal Prince’s brilliant original concept about making the Industrial Revolution and class warfare a barely concealed subtext to everything in Sweeney and center it, making the show more relevant (and controversial) in this era of BLM protests. And before you ask, though I had notions of my own (as did Megan) where casting and dramaturgy were concerned, yes, we fully intended to take a back seat if we could find investors and prioritize artists of color in assembling the creative team for such a production.

But to do that, we needed the blessing, or at least the attention, of the big man himself. I’ve spoken about this before (see this tweet); I got Sondheim’s attention. I was prepared for him to brush it off, which he very easily could have; suffice it to say, this was far from the first time I’d pitched him on an unusual idea for one of his shows, and I had otherwise always played “six degrees” when it came to connecting with him, coming no closer than, say, knowing a guy he’d casually dated, reading a John Logan HBO pilot based loosely on him, or soaking up stories about him from mentors. Consequently, I considered it a positive sign when he directly engaged with me, for the first time, about this concept.

Though initially skeptical, he was ultimately won over and was enthusiastic enough to give me detailed notes on our initial conceptual rumblings, all of which were helpful, and insightful, critiqued holes I hadn’t noticed, and made suggestions to patch the cracks. Naturally, when he passed away last fall, I was devastated (see this tweet). I counted myself blessed that I’d been lucky enough to discuss the idea in some depth with Steve and that he at least wanted to see how the final product could turn out. He was particularly gifted with the “keep going!” and I’m glad he bestowed it on me. (I have some fun anecdotes. Feel free to ask in the comments section, I’m glad to share.)

One notion he especially liked was a casting idea I borrowed from previous opera house productions of Sweeney; namely, it had become a tradition for Sweeneys who aged out of the role to play the Judge. I had a specific Sweeney vet in mind for the part. Steve loved it. That is relevant. Before he died, I’d shared a variant of the fleshed-out proposal, with all of Steve’s (admittedly uncredited) notes included, and the “Sweeney vet as Judge” idea, with a Facebook group, Finishing the Chat, which grew from the old Sondheim.com forums. That is also relevant. (To be clear: relevant because, if it didn’t come from Steve [innocently or otherwise], several fringe industry people in that Facebook group might have been — or passed the idea on to — someone who said, “Well, that sure is neat… too bad you didn’t produce it first!”)

In February 2022, I heard from everybody’s favorite sweaty oracle on TikTok (he’s an old friendly acquaintance, actually named deep within my bio on this site, though our relationship can be very Bette/Joan at times) that I’d been scooped. Thomas Kail was developing a Sweeney revival — with a largely POC cast. Eh, great minds think alike, I was prepared to say… until, I heard they’d approached the same person I proposed to Steve as a great idea to play the Judge, who would be cast white. (The actor was allegedly noncommittal; he had his age and the role’s rigors to consider.) The notion in itself of casting a former Sweeney as a Judge? Two people can have that idea. Reaching out to that specific actor, in the specific context of playing a white-coded authority figure in a largely POC cast? That smelled fishy to me.

What else he was telling me was even more surprising: they weren’t even trying to take the potentially headline-grabbing part of the concept. It seemed they had zero interest in the visual setting, the musical arrangements, or the mise-en-scene that made the whole notion of a largely POC cast “pop.” Putting Hal’s subtext front and center was the best thing about that idea. Why not steal that? But nope; they were only taking the notion of a POC cast and George Hearn as the Judge — in other words, a traditional Sweeney with a thin veneer of “woke,” not anything daring or thought-provoking. What’s that line from tick… tick… BOOM? “People don’t want new ideas. They want market research.” I wasn’t super surprised; if we’re being honest, most of the time, the type of person who can afford a ticket only wants the veneer.

Now, as most people who know me well can tell you, I wasn’t about to take this lying down, especially since the totality of the concept was so much more potent in my hands. I learned at the feet of an auteur who once publicly threatened to sic both the NAACP and the Black Muslims on establishment competitors. Plus, I’m Italian; we’re a people of passion, and being ripped off certainly calls for a passionate response.

Just as the wheels began turning on the front of making noise about being screwed, however, the sweaty oracle informed me of a change of plans: Kail’s slate now focused on Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford, and an overall more conventional production, with an investment outlay of beaucoup bucks (some from a tri-named artist he’d worked with before to much success) and full orchestrations. At which point I decided the best revenge was to blow up their spot, thus my initial leak (before sweaty oracle began talking in more detail about it, anyway) to Twitter and the BroadwayWorld boards about this production being in development. Fuck ’em all. You shaft me, I shaft you. People would see through that casting and laugh it off the block, right?

I didn’t count on three things: 1) Sondheim’s death having the effect of devotees wanting lavish tributes to the master, no matter the wrapping, 2) people liking the two miscast leads (then again, there was an audience for The Music Man…), and 3) my chatter about being ripped off leading (I think) to the producers trying to avoid even remote comparison to my idea if my proposal, and the attempted theft, ever emerged. Thus, the current rumor — from reliable sources — that, unless this post and OnStage Blog making noise causes change, there’ll be no POC leads in the cast (maybe two understudies, tops). I find it sad they’d rather take the Great Comet route and run straight into awful optics than just cast artists of color, damn the odds, or — at the risk of sounding self-serving — bring me on.

(I mean, you’d be going from an upper-middle-class generational wealth white dude who has exclusively tried to tell POC stories to a lower middle-class mildly comfortable white dude with a big interest in telling POC stories; since that’s what the purse strings are comfortable with, I’ll take it, if I can bring people up with me who should be telling those stories.)

That said, this is just more proof that “the system,” so to speak, needs reinventing in key areas. For the profit algorithm to think Groban/Ashford is a more lucrative idea, and worse, for it to possibly be right, a lot of stuff is unquestionably flat-out broken.