TheatreZone Artistic Director Mark Danni to Bring SWEENEY TODD to Opera Roanoke

It looks like a musical, it sounds like a musical, it feels like a musical. But then someone says Sweeney Todd is an opera. Is there a difference between the two forms?

Audiences will have a chance to decide later this fall when TheatreZone founder and artistic director Mark Danni directs and recreates the non-profit professional Equity theatre group's conceptual production of Sweeney Todd at Opera Roanoke to open the 40-year-old opera company's Ruby Anniversary Season on Friday, October 30 with a second performance taking place on Sunday, November 1, 2015.

According to Opera Roanoke artistic director Scott Williams, much of the beautiful Stephen Sondheim music comes straight from 19th century operetta and grand opera, so the cast must bridge operetta and contemporary musical theatre.

"Musical theatre lovers and opera buffs argue over the diminishing differences between their favorite art forms, but Sondheim himself has been known to say that an opera is simply what plays in an opera house and a musical is what plays in a theatre," Williamson explains.

"The difference is in the expectation of the audience. Obviously, there are differences in terms of performers and how they approach singing as an art form. But primarily an opera is something done in an opera house in front of an opera audience. And a show -- musical play, musical comedy -- is something done in a theater," says Williamson. "In terms of what is being written today, the line is becoming more and more blurred between the two forms," he believes.

"Opera is associated with classical music and its style of singing, where the voice and the notes are more important than the text. Opera is generally defined as sung throughout and it is generally driven by the music. In fact, over the past 25 years, many contemporary opera companies have been trying to move toward casting for the voice and the character," says Danni. "The attitude on casting in opera is you look for someone who can sing. In a musical, you look for someone who can best play the role and if the music needs adjusting that will be done."

Danni continues, "The cast of an opera is chosen for the voice. The cast of a musical is chosen for acting and voice. With Sweeney Todd, Sondheim has achieved what many have attempted and failed: a successful American musical drama."

To accommodate the design of Opera Roanoke's 925-seat Jefferson Center and an expanded production cast of 40, Danni will refit TheatreZone's set designer Chris Rich's scheme with the assistance of TheatreZone stage manager Danielle Ranno and designer Tialoc Lopez-Waterman to make sure features such as acoustics, sight lines and wing space suit the needs of Opera Roanoke.

"We are ecstatic to bring one of the greatest musical theatre productions to appeal to opera patrons and to broaden the appeal of opera to Roanoke's growing theatre community," notes Danni. "This reproduction reinforces TheatreZone's mission to bring professional theatre and lost treasures of Broadway to reach new audiences."

About TheatreZone

Operating under the guidelines of the Actors' Equity Association and small professional theatres contract, TheatreZone is in residence and performs in the intimate 250-seat G&L Theatre housed on the magnificent campus of The Community School of Naples, one block north of Pine Ridge Road at 13275 Livingston Road.

TheatreZone Season 11 tickets are now on sale for five shows including a joint production of Xanadu with Florida Gulf Cost University's Bower School of Music and The Arts, staged in the 90-seat Theatre Lab on the FGCU campus for 10-performances, October 1 through October 11, 2015. Tickets to Xanadu cost $45 and $40 each.

Season 11 selections feature Marvin Hamlisch's Sweet Smell of Success, January 7 - 17, 2016; The Boy From Oz, February 4 - 14, 2016; Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, March 3 - 13, 2016 and Dames at Sea, April 28 - May 8, 2016. Season 11 series tickets are on sale now with the subscriber series (four shows) and a mini series (three shows). Individual ticket sales to Season 11 selections are priced at $48 - $53 plus a $2 per ticket fee.

A special one-night only Love Finds Judy Garland concert takes place Tuesday, February 16, 2016 featuring songstress Joan Ellison. Tickets cost $50.

Grammy-award winning singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester performs a cabaret concert on Thursday, February 18 and Friday, February 19, 2016. Tickets cost $50 and $75.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call TheatreZone at 1-888-ZONE-FLA, 1-888-966-3352 or purchase online at www.theatrezone-florida.com.

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