Quast Confirmed As Judge Turpin In SWEENEY TODD With Terfel And Thompson!

Further tickets are released for sale today (7 November 2014) for Lonny Price's production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller, the first production in a major new long-term partnership between English National Opera (ENO) and the GradeLinnit Company.

Joining the previously announced Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson who will lead the cast as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett is Philip Quast as Judge Turpin. Further casting will be announced shortly.

Multi Olivier-award winning Philip Quast will play Judge Turpin. His many UK musical theatre credits include Grahame Chandler in The Fix at the Donmar Warehouse, Georges Seurat in Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in The Park with George and Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific both for the National Theatre, Juan Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita at the Adelphi Theatre and Georges in La Cage Aux Folles for the Menier Chocolate Factory. Quast played Javert in the original Australian cast of LES MISERABLES as well as in the West End and can be heard as part ofLES MISERABLES Complete Symphonic Recording and on LES MISERABLES: The Dream Cast in Concert, recorded during the show's tenth anniversary celebration at Royal Albert Hall. His concert engagements have included Sondheim's Follies at the London Palladium, Night of 1000 Voices at the Royal Albert Hall, Hey Mr. Producer at the Lyceum Theatre, Sweeney Todd at Royal Festival Hall and Tsunami with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The New York Philharmonic's semi-staged production of Sweeney Todd as Judge Turpin was Quast's New York stage debut.

The strictly limited run of 13 performances at ENO's London Coliseum begins on 30 March 2015 with press night on 31 March and final performance on 12 April 2015. The ENO orchestra, conducted by David Charles Abell, will appear on stage with the cast in this semi-staged production which was originally produced by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center earlier this year, with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick.

Tickets for Sweeney Todd are £10 - £125, with 300 seats available at £10 for every performance.

Set in Victorian London, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street tells the story of the eponymous barber who seeks vengeance on what he sees as a merciless world by murdering his customers and, with the help of his landlady, the romantically inclined Mrs. Lovett, bakes their bodies into meat pies, which are fed to London's avid and unknowing populace. Sondheim's score pays homage to the music of Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann. Highlights include "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," "Not While I'm Around," "A Little Priest," and "Pretty Women."

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond,Sweeney Todd received its world premiere at the Uris Theatre on Broadway in March 1979, directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. The show received eight Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, as well as eleven Drama Desk Awards and the Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical.

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