2019
Director Noam Shapiro cites the last section of my book Sondheim and Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd in the notes for his production of Sweeney at the Yale Dramatic Association in late November 2019: “To many, Sweeney Todd depicts a world in which everything bends towards destruction. But, as Sondheim scholar Aaron C. Thomas reminds us, the musical is also a fable—the ‘Ballad’ insists on this—and it’s a story that has been told countless times and with different variations across generations. Thinking about the show as the repetition of a tragic ritual opens up a space for hope: The tale can be told differently. Perhaps the next time we feel the pull of the violence that we’ve ritualized as a society we will simply say no. It’s in our power to break the cycle. But there’s work to be done, so much work.”