TheaterWorks, Hartford Stage announce joint effort to produce Sondheim musical ‘Sweeney Todd’
Two pillars of Hartford’s theater scene are coming together to produce a roughly $1 million musical that neither would be able to pull off independently.
Leaders with the Hartford Stage and TheaterWorks, on Wednesday, announced a collaborative run of the Stephen Sondheim classic “Sweeney Todd,” from June 5 to July 5 of 2026.
“This is a big musical that neither of us could have done by ourselves,” Hartford Stage Managing Director Cynthia Rider said. “We want to do the great American musicals. And together, we get to do one of the greatest masterpieces of the American Musical Theater.”
The production will include a cast of nine actors and nine musicians, Rider said. The production cost alone, absent marketing and the theaters’ ongoing operations budget, will run about $1 million.
A typical, non-musical Hartford Stage production costs between $350,000 and $550,000 to produce, she said.
“Sweeney Todd” will be performed at Hartford Stage’s larger venue.
A strong response could lead the two theaters to collaborate further in the future, Rider said.
Organizers say a 2019 change in leadership at TheaterWorks and Hartford Stage, combined with a divisive national climate and the need to rebuild audiences and subscriber bases following the COVID-19 pandemic, helped inspire the theaters to think outside the box and pool their resources for a swing at a big production.
“I view theater as a public health initiative," said Melia Bensussen, artistic director of Hartford Stage. “I view theater as an economic engine. These are really hard times. We need you to support these two institutions, all of the arts organizations in Hartford and really in this country.”
Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal attended a press conference at TheaterWorks on Pearl Street in Hartford Wednesday morning to help celebrate the collaboration.
Blumenthal promised he would continue efforts to direct federal funding to the arts, a task admittedly more difficult in the current political climate. Still, Blumenthal said he holds out hope that the Trump administration will come around to the benefits yielded by the arts.
“It’s a challenge, and it’s going to be an increasing challenge,” Blumenthal told the Hartford Business Journal. “My hope is once this administration learns that the arts are a real investment, not just money spent on performances, but a real investment in economic progress for cities and suburban areas, that they will recognize the responsibility the government has traditionally supported in the arts.”
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