A Quill VR painting of the original Sweeney Todd stage, to be converted to VR, in the line of my other VR stages. So far: Pirelli’s cart, the pie and barber shop, a barrel and the table it rests on, a stool, mugs, and the barber stairs (which sent me back for better reference).

The research leans on the 1979 Broadway production and its designer, Eugene Lee: the full show recordings, Martha Swope’s photographs at the NYPL, and Theater Design and Technology.

The barber chair

From the original 1979 Broadway commercial, the chair appears to use a spring and a weight: the spring brings it back to the seated position, and the weight drives the chair back as the seat back is raised. Eugene Lee has said that “a guy named ‘Spider’ solved the chair problem”, with no more real information, so the mechanism is reconstructed from the footage.

Still in progress.