Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster on Sweeney Todd, Dressing Room Jams and Being Scared of Sondheim

On February 9, Tony-winning performers Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster took over the roles of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in the revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Their reign of terror will end on May 5.

Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek recently sat down with the pair for The Broadway Show to talk about how they see their characters, the technical complexity of the roles and their terror-tinged-love of Sondheim.

This is a very nice dressing room. It's painted black. Did Josh Groban do this or did you?

AARON: I did this. It was white and bright and nice and airy and I said, “Let's make it a cave.” Yeah. I wanted it dark like my soul. No, I like dark rooms anyway, but this, I just thought, was very appropriate. It's quite light in here now during the day, but at night it's very dark and I like it a lot. I put on dark music and get ready to go rage.

SUTTON: Do you really?

AARON: No.

SUTTON: Oh. I was like, I listen to pop music.

AARON: I listen to indie pop. There's lots of Noah Kahan going on in here.

SUTTON: And I'm listening to Miley Cyrus.

A lot of people, when they heard you were cast as Sweeney Todd, they were like, “Aaron Tveit? That nice guy?” I actually got to see you do Assassins in London, so I've seen the dark side. But is it exciting to get to show people another side of you?

AARON: It's so much fun. I mean, listen, I've gotten to do a lot of great things, but I like going in this direction. The Assassins thing... I love that production. I had confidence that I could do this because of that, and because of what I learned during that show. This is just kind of that times ten.

Sutton, you've been able to do a lot of things. I mean, you've been able to do really hardcore character roles and then you've been able to do much more glamorous leading lady kinds of things. This actually just fits into the big picture of your career.

SUTTON: That's what I like to think. I'm always curious to take those curious left turns or the ones that even scare me. If I go, “That feels scary!” I'm like, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. That's the one I want to do! Because I want to keep growing as a performer. Hopefully when I can look back on my career, it'll be a buffet of different things.

Are these some of your darkest roles you've both tackled?

SUTTON: I don't think of Mrs. Lovett as a dark role. I think of her as complicated and complex. I don't think of her as a villain. I think of her as someone who is desperate to be loved, needed. She's conniving, but one of her last lines is, “Everything I did, I swear, I thought was only for the best,” and, “Can we still be married?” She'll do anything for him and he can't get over his dead wife.

AARON: I don't think it's dark either. I mean, it goes to a dark place. But I think this is a guy who was totally wronged. He had a really good life. He kept his nose down. He did what he was supposed to do. He was completely wronged by somebody and then, through an extreme set of circumstances, has ended up back in London and just wants to get his life back. He wants to get his wife and his child back. Then what we see happen in the play is the 15 years of trauma. You see his humanity crack.

Trying to humanize this story… That’s been my approach to it. So the audience can say, “Oh, maybe I would make those same decisions if I was in those circumstances.”

Have you been fans of each other's roles in anything?

SUTTON: I think the first time I've ever seen you on stage was Moulin Rouge!, which seems ridiculous. I just missed everything.

AARON: Well, you're usually busy. When you're in shows, it's hard to see other shows. But no, I got to see [Thoroughly Modern] Millie a couple months before I left school to join that Rent tour, and I was just completely rocked by Sutton on stage. It's wild to think that was 20 years ago, but here we are.

And the physical comedy she did in that show. I remember when I first saw Sutton in that show. The bit with the desk when you were falling in the chair... I remember it so vividly. You just love being a clown, don't you?

SUTTON: Well, yeah.

You're so good at it.

SUTTON: It is really fun. Carol Burnett is one of my heroes, and I watched her on The Carol Burnett Show. And there was something about that—a tall, funny lady not afraid to be ridiculous. I've always sort of been drawn to that. I love making people laugh and to be able to find so much humor within Sweeney Todd is also really fun. And the whole physicality of her and who she is and the desperation and how it literally, physically manifests is really fun.

What was your preparation like for this? Did you have a lot of time to prepare?

AARON: We were very lucky that we had a whole month, basically the whole month of November, to learn the show [before rehearsals]. It’s so good to learn the show before you start rehearsal. We had sessions with [music director] Alex Lacamoire and with Tommy [Kail] to just actually learn the score.

SUTTON: Which is the hardest thing I've had to learn.

AARON: Tremendously difficult.

Is there anything specific that was really hard to get right?

SUTTON: All the intervals, all the lyrics. Mrs. Lovett is chatty. Real chatty. She says a lot of words. It was the lyrics and then even learning “Worst Pies” or “Priest.” And then just that repetition of trying to just learn just the basics of the music.

AARON: There's a section in the final scene where both of us are singing our own individual melodies and we're each in our own different time signatures.

SUTTON: With zero help from the orchestra.

AARON: And the orchestra is doing a completely different thing. I've been too lucky. I've been in a lot of rock shows where there's always a drum set and a guitar telling you exactly where everything is. This is not that. You actually really, really have to learn it.

One thing you didn't have to experience this time is the terror of, "When is Steve coming to see it?"

SUTTON: I was always so scared of him. He's scary. He scared me a lot. And I remember working on Anyone Can Whistle and all I remember was singing “There Won't Be Trumpets” in rehearsal and him taking notes. That's all I remember. I think about that a lot.

When I hear the audience and how they are responding to the show right now in 2024… They are coming in and screaming and so excited. That excites me and I wish he could experience that. See all these young people who are just in love with the show.

Sutton, you especially in the last few years, have really been doing one classic role after the next. You've developed new musicals, but you've been really sort of able to check off these big classic roles. Is it exciting that you're becoming that go-to person?

SUTTON: Especially being able to do Winifred and Mrs. Lovett has been pretty amazing.

And The Music Man, you came off of. It must feel good.

SUTTON: Yeah, it does feel good. It feels exciting. I'm thrilled as an actor. All I want is to keep growing and be challenged. I feel like I'm expanding and it's an exciting time. And I don't take it for granted. I'm so grateful to be able to have that opportunity. When I grew up, I never in a million years thought that it was even an option. And the fact that I've made my whole career, I've been a working actor and to do it at this level, it is not something I take lightly. I feel so lucky every day I get to walk into a Broadway stage door. Any stage door. And to be able to be a part of this history is mind-blowing.

Do you have some other classic roles you would like to tackle Mr. Tveit?

AARON: Yeah. I'd still like to play George in Sunday [in the Park with George].

Well, you’ve got the beard.

AARON: I have the beard ready to go.

Well, I'm just excited to see what you guys keep doing. I mean, you're clearly not going anywhere. Broadway is in your blood and your bones, right?

SUTTON: Yeah. It keeps calling us back.

AARON: I only wanted to ever be an actor and have a career on Broadway. And so this has been like home and will always continue to hopefully be home for me. There's nothing like it. Like you said, walking into a stage door, walking out on that stage for 1500 people. I never, ever take it for granted, and it's just so wonderful that we get to do this.