CANCELLED – Context & Conversation: “You’re Killing Me” co-presented with Providence Public Library

This event has been cancelled, please click here for more information.

Inspired by Stephen Sondheim’s/Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

with Community Partner Ellie’s at 225 Weybosset St, Providence, RI 02903

The character of Sweeney Todd, homicidal barber, first appeared in Victorian England, a careeningly modernizing society that generated a literary landscape awash with sensational tales of murder as entertainment. In our own societal moment characterized by violent diversions – whether via film, video game, television, podcast, even theater – can we stop to ask why? Does a cultural preoccupation with expressions of violent death reflect our violent reality? Does it promote violent behavior? Or does it sublimate our violent anxieties into safely consumable entertainments – like a night at Trinity Rep? Join horror writer Janaya Kizzie and others for a contemplation of cultural carnage.