Talk about making no small plans.
Before it packs up and heads to a larger facility at the end of this season, Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, the phenomenally successful musical theater housed in the No Exit Cafe, the intensely intimate Rogers Park storefront at 6970 N. Glenwood, is going to stage Stephen Sondheim’s grand-scale “Sweeney Todd” (March 9 – April 29). The show, which most often is produced on vast Broadway and opera house stages, will also have a formidable cast as the theater made clear with its casting announcement — a lineup led by an experienced opera performer.
Philip Torre, a baritone who has appeared on the stages of Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and others, will play the title role of the demon barber of Fleet Street. Joining him as Mrs. Lovett, the enterprising maker of “the worst pies in London,” will be Jacquelyne Jones, who just completed a run in Firebrand Theatre’s acclaimed production of “Lizzie,” and was previously seen in Theo Ubique’s “Honky Tonk Angels” and Kokandy Productions’ “Heathers.”
The show will be directed by Theo Ubique artistic director Fred Anzevino, with the ever exceptional musical director Jeremy Ramey leading the orchestra. Joining Torre and Jones in the cast will be Cecelia Iole (reprising her impressive turn last year at Aurora’s Paramount Theatre in the role of Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna); Nathan Carroll, in the role of Johanna’s suitor, Anthony Hope; Frankie Leo Bennett, who played Mark in Theo Ubique’s just-closed production of “Altar Boyz,” as Tobias Ragg; John B. Leen as Judge Turpin; Kevin Webb as Beadle Bamford, and Megan Elk as the Beggar Woman.
Theo Ubique, which always offers an optional pre-show “themed” dinner for an additional price, will put meat pies on the dinner menu for “Sweeney Todd,” with “a vegetarian option also offered for the faint of heart.”
NOTE: The company’s final production at its current home will be a retrospective revue, “Last Call at No Exit,” running June 15 – July 22. For additional information visit www.theo-ubique.com.
