Sarah Rice Dies: Original Johanna In Broadway’s First ‘Sweeney Todd’ Was 68

Greg Evans
·2 min read
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Sarah Rice, who performed the pivotal role of the endangered Johanna in the original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, died Saturday of cancer. She was 68.

Her death was announced in an Instagram post by her friend and fellow performer Rebecca Caine, who remembered Rice for her love of animals. “May you be greeted by every animal you ever loved on the other side and may green finch and linnet birds sing you to your rest,” wrote Caine, referring to the Sweeney number “Green Finch & Linnet Bird” performed by the Johanna character.

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Rice, whose Sweeney role in 1979 was her first and only Broadway performance, revisited her signature song just two years ago at the Sondheim Unplugged concert staged at New York’s 54 Below.

Born March 5, 1955, in Okinawa, Japan, where her father was stationed while serving in the U.S. Air Force, Rice was raised in Arizona and moved to New York at age 18 to pursue a stage career. Rice would later write that she “arrived in NYC with $100, two cats, and a piano.”

Prior to her Broadway breakthrough in 1979, Rice originated the role of Marianne in Hang On to Your Ribbons Off Off Broadway and then stepped into the long-running Off Broadway musical of The Fantasticks as The Girl. During that era she also performed in productions of A Little Night Music, Candide, The Tempest and The Sound of Music. She originated the role of Susan in the New York Theatre Workshop Virginia Woolf musical The Waves.

Original ‘Sweeney Todd’ stars Sarah Rice and Len Cariou at “Broadway And The Bard” in 2016
Original ‘Sweeney Todd’ stars Sarah Rice and Len Cariou at “Broadway And The Bard” in 2016

A soprano, Rice also performed with such opera companies as Italy’s Gran Teatro la Fenice in Venice, the Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera, Dallas Opera and others.

Rice was long a familiar presence in New York’s cabaret scene, winning a 2010 Bistro Award and 2011 Mac Award for her solo show. She was also a noted player of the Theremin and was invited to perform the “otherwordly” sounds, as she put it, at the Caramoor Music Festival.

A longtime resident of New York City, Rice noted on her website that she continued to live in her adopted hometown “with the same piano” that she played when she first arrived, and she always provided a home to beloved cats.

Rice was married to her producer John Hiller, but complete survivor information was not immediately available.

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