Forget red Solo cups and dirty laundry—the East Campus suite of Mitchell Feinberg, SEAS ’13, is cluttered with 25-foot painted London cityscapes, modular wooden stage platforms, and a 200-pound barber chair from the 1890s.
As Crown and Scepter Theater Company, Feinberg and Joseph Rozenshtein, CC ’12/SIPA ’13, are staging this fall’s off-campus production of “Sweeney Todd.” With zero up-front outside funding and a venue 20 blocks south of its campus base, Crown and Scepter has resorted to some unusual tactics to realize its production—including turning a dorm room into the show’s veritable art closet.
“I like it now that I have the barber chair in my room,” Feinberg, the show’s musical director, said of EC 803’s idiosyncratic new decorations. “I can relax [in it]—give myself a shave.”
Feinberg and Rozenshtein’s Crown and Scepter is a “vehicle created for the sole purpose of putting on this show,” as Rozenshtein, the show’s director, said. Though the two have worked together on various campus shows, they are actually childhood friends, a fact evidenced in their tendency to get lost in facetious, excitable rapport.
“I think it would be safe to say that it’s very difficult to work with us individually,” Rozenshtein said. “But Mitchell and I work extraordinarily well together as a duo ... We’re the only ones who can tolerate each other the way we do.”
While moving set pieces between Feinberg’s bedroom, EC’s courtyard, and Ancel Plaza for their regular set build session in the weeks leading up to the show, the team behind “Sweeney” spoke to Spectator about the makeshift and often quixotic path their passion project has traveled.
In its most literal sense, that road has led to professional performing arts venue Symphony Space at 95th Street and Broadway. The theater will host the show’s four total performances at 5:30 and 9 p.m. on Oct. 31 and Nov. 4.
Originally, the team compiled a proposal to stage “Sweeney” on campus but didn’t find a campus theater group to back the vision. “When we sat back and we thought about whether we wanted to scratch the project or go on to other projects, we realized that our team was very passionate,” Rozenshtein said. “And so we decided that we would do it anyway.”
That, of course, has been easier said than done. By then, on-campus performance spaces were fully booked. “And that’s perfectly understandable … We’re just another group who wants space and they just don’t have enough room,” Rozenshtein said.
As Feinberg explained, the average Columbia play is afforded a more structured approach to producing by their on-campus venue. “I’ve worked on shows in Roone. They have the space for a week or for five days, and you can keep day-to-day things in there—keep your costumes in a room, your stuff on the ramp,” he said.
EC offered the convenience, amenities, and abundant open spaces (and cramped ones, in the case of Feinberg’s bedroom) they needed. They quickly saw it as a natural home for the show’s hit-and-run set construction and rehearsals.
According to “Sweeney” assistant producer and props manager Cristina Ramos, CC ’12, having a highly visible presence in Columbia’s busiest dorm has been an unexpected blessing. “It’s really great publicity, because people come over and are like, ‘What are you doing?,’” she said with a laugh. “People kept texting me, ‘Wow, the [barber] chair looks great! I can’t wait to see the show,’” producer Gabriel Kerr, CC ’12, added.
Allison Cohen, BC ’14, the show’s set designer, has had an entirely separate slate of challenges while painting the show’s 25-foot backdrop on the ground of Ancel Plaza. “Periodically I had to climb up to the second floor [of EC] and look down at it to make sure it looked right from far away,” she said.
And when that floor is right outside a residential area? “Actually, one time, someone spit out their window and it landed on the backdrop, which was kind of disgusting,” Cohen said.
Designing professional-grade sets necessitated flexible thinking. “The theater doesn’t have wing space, so we either have the option to break it down and carry it into the back … or we leave it on stage the whole time,” Feinberg said.
They designed every piece to break down, both to facilitate scene changes during the night of the performance and to comfortably fit the set into Feinberg’s room. As a result, nearly every “Sweeney Todd” set piece is equipped with detachable hinges, collapsible walls, and, in some cases, wheels.
Although they have grant applications pending to help them earn back money spent on things like set construction, Rozenshtein and Feinberg fronted all costs for the show. The largest sum was, naturally, the fee for Symphony Space, which was provided to them at a discount. “It’s pretty comparable to a one-week, two- or three-show tech cost at Lerner,” Feinberg said, explaining that they avoid Lerner’s hourly tech charges with the all-inclusive rate.
Still, they are admittedly more cash-conscious than recognized student groups, as they have neither a University allocation nor previous revenues to help them. They hope to make it up on a combination of ticket profits, advertisements, donations, and other fundraising efforts.
“If the show indicates to us that we can be sustainable—that is to say, we make a profit—we will perpetuate ourselves as an institution,” Rozenshtein said. “But our first goal is to put on the show.”
Tickets for “Sweeney Todd” are available at bit.ly/cssweeney for $18. CUID holders can save $8 off the ticket price with the coupon code sw20n1y1.
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