“Sweeny Todd and the String of Pearls” came out of nowhere as the final choice for the fall play, beating out “Frankenstein” and Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians”.

“The students committee picked it,” said Mr. Propst, sponsor of the drama club.

The play is more known through Tim Burton’s adaptation of the play as a musical film, starring Johnny Depp as the killer barber. The story follows a murderous barber whose method to kill is to drop the victim from his barber chair into a tunnel, breaking the neck. If that didn’t work, Todd goes down and slices the throat of the person with his signature straight razor.

Each of the leads did an excellent job at portraying their character’s emotions.  Senior Javon Jordan showed Todd’s cruelty and at narrating his innocents and Senior Alania York at showing Mrs. Lovetts’ malice and her wanting of the murders to stop.

The British accents of most actors and actresses were very convincing and authentic, especially Kathryn Williams, freshman, with a first-class British accent.

However, one worry that I had about the play was the working of the chair. The tech crew did a marvelous job on making the chair look as good as it did and how it leaned back with each of Todd’s victims.

“The original plan was to use red silk as a stand-ined for the blood, because it wouldn’t mess up the actor’s costume, but the tech crew wants to try and figure out a way to do realistic blood,” said Mr. Propst. On the Saturday performance, the stage crew resorted to using chocolate, like many old black and white movies, as blood.

The most difficult part of the production was the number of scene changes.

“Normally, our plays would have no scene changes at all. But for Sweeny Todd, it’s 17. I worried that the moving of scenery will slow down the play and lose the audience’s attention,” said Mr. Propst.

This didn’t happen as the use of lights fading in and out to show scene changes.

The play attracted rows and rows of fans, including parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, fellow classmates, and even some former students who clapped at the end of every scene and gave a huge thunderous applause at curtain call. Mr. Propst and the rest of the drama department again put on a spectacular performance.

[nggallery id=15]