Dark musical 'Sweeney' to debut

The regional premiere of an acclaimed new drama and a revival of a dark musical are among the diverse stage productions opening this week.

• SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, directed and choreographed by Jim Christian, will play Friday through Oct. 31 in the Mary G. Steiner Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main, Park City.

Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's macabre tale of gruesome revenge (coming to the big screen later this year with Johnny Depp) is set in 1846 in London, where Mrs. Lovett's shop becomes a hot spot with her unique meat pies — thanks to ingredients provided by the barbershop upstairs.

The cast includes J. Michael Bailey as Sweeney Todd and Camille Van Wagoner as Mrs. Lovett, with Cecily Ellis as Johanna, Justin Bills as Anthony Hope, her suitor, Jim Dale as Judge Turpin, Stephen Fehr as Jonas Fogg and Brian Kesler as Tobias Ragg. Gary Sorensen will conduct a live, eight-piece orchestra.

Following opening night's 8 p.m. performance, additional performances are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays with 2 p.m. matinees on Oct. 20 and 27. It will also run Monday-Wednesday the week of Halloween. Tickets are $17-$36 with discounts for children, students and senior citizens, although the Egyptian Theatre Company cautions that "Sweeney Todd" is recommended for mature audiences (435-649-9371 or www.parkcityshows.com).

• HAPPY END, a 1929 melodrama-comedy with music, written by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Dorothy Lane (Elizabeth Hauptman's pseudonym), will have six performances between Wednesday and Oct. 7 in Studio 115 of the University of Utah's Performing Arts Building, just west of the campus bookstore.

The three collaborators wrote "Happy End" to take advantage of the surprising success of "The Threepenny Opera" the year before. The social satire, set in a mythical, Chicago style gangland, where a Salvation Army lieutenant tries to save the soul of a down-and-out mobster, contains such tunes as "The Bilbao Song."

The student production will be presented Wednesdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with matinees at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. General admission seating is $5 for students and $9 for all others (581-7100 or www.kingtix.com).

• THE MOST MASSIVE WOMAN WINS, Madeline George's comedy about four women in the waiting room of a liposuction clinic, is being staged Tuesday-Saturday in the Black Box Theatre of Westminster College's Jewett Center.