When audience members take their seats at Wilton Playshop’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street this weekend, they’ll be watching a story of obsession, grief and revenge — led by a pair of actors who know something about long-running partnerships.
Chris and Betsy Wilkes are married in real life and now share the stage as Sweeney Todd and the Barber’s wife. Their story, like so many in Wilton theater, starts close to home.
“I’ve been in Wilton my entire life,” Betsy said. “I went through K through 12… grew up here. I think my parents moved here when I was, like, two.” As a teenager, she first appeared in a Playshop summer production and has been returning to the stage in that familiar red building ever since.
Chris’s Wilton story is more recent, but it was at the Wilton Playshop where they made their love connection.
“We met through the Wilton Playshop,” he recalled. “I attended a performance of She Loves Me 10 years ago… [Betsy] came on stage and she sang, and I was like, I’m gonna have to meet her. That was kind of the beginning.”
From there, their paths wound through multiple community theater performances, with one in the audience watching the other on stage. About a year after they started dating, they landed their first show together.
“About six months later, we did a show together in New Canaan. That was our first, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. This is our fourth,” Chris recounted. “When we did the introductions [meeting the Sweeney Todd cast], I kind of jokingly said, ‘Yeah, this is our fourth show together since we met. The first one, I kind of was a skeezy stalker. The second one, she was a ghost. The third one, I was her abusive, cheating husband. And this one — spoiler alert — I kill her. So it kind of keeps getting worse and worse,” he laughed.
Clearly, stage roles aren’t a reflection of real life for the duo. “You don’t fight over these grand things. [Instead], you fight over, who fed the dog or not? Who has to take the kid to hockey at six in the morning, right?” Betsy added.
They’re enjoying being a part of one of musical theater’s most iconic titles. Chris calls Sweeney’s role one of the “Mount Rushmore of men’s musical theater roles,” and the score’s complexity and emotional demands have made the production “a good stretch for both of us” that’s “been incredibly rewarding.”
Theater in Their Backyard — Literally
The Wilkes family lives just a short drive from the Playshop. For Betsy, that proximity made this show feel like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a bucket-list role at the theater where she grew up, in a venue she and Chris can just about call home.
Offstage, life is full and busy. Chris works for the international polling and data company YouGov, managing teams and consulting with clients. Betsy works for a human resources business partner at Gartner in Stanford, helping executives think about people, workplace communication and collaboration — skills that translate surprisingly well into being part of a cast and putting on a show.
Between demanding careers and parenting, theater is the space where the couple reconnects as performers and partners. “It’s a fun sort of opportunity for us to do something that’s ‘us,’ and not just ‘mom and dad,’” Betsy said.
Their six-year-old son has grown up in and around rehearsals, starting as a newborn when he was strapped to Betsy in a wrap while they ran scenes and songs during rehearsals for a production of The Secret Garden. “He would just sleep, and we would sing, and then we would go home,” she said.
Even now, he’s quite the theater kid. Betsy joked that he could play her understudy and go on in her place if needed. “He knows every line, every lyric,” Betsy said. “It’s very, very funny.”
A Special Place — For Chris and Betsy, and For Wilton
For the couple, Wilton Playshop is more than just a performance venue. It’s a place that lets them do something they love while they’re leading their lives and supporting their family in a community they love.
“I was never somebody that wanted a specific stage or a big, you know, venue, I didn’t need that. I just wanted to perform. If somebody was like, Come do something in my backyard, I would be like, let’s do it. So being able to have a job and feed the family, but also have local community theaters where I can still do the thing that I love on a regular basis fills the cup,” Betsy said. “It doesn’t matter that it’s not Broadway, It’s about the performance, not where it is.”
For people who know Betsy and Chris outside of the theater, seeing them onstage can be a big surprise.
“If you haven’t seen me and Betsy perform, you kind of don’t know us, really. It’s such a big part of who we are that gets showcased so seldomly, but it’s so integral to us. To really understand who we are, you have to see this piece,” Chris said. “Otherwise it’s like having a Hall of Fame quarterback in the PTA, and you’ve never looked up his stats or seen his videos.”
That overlap — between day-to-day Wilton and the world of the stage — is part of what makes playing these parts, in this production of Sweeney Todd, in their town, so special. Neighbors who know the Wilkes family from school events, sports field sidelines, office Zooms, or PTA meetings have a rare chance to see them step into very different lives under the lights.
Chris said Wilton residents may recognize him from his time as a coach for youth lacrosse or Wilton baseball, or from the Wilton YMCA where he works out, or from his kids’ other activities.
“Cub Scouts — my six year old is a Tiger Scout, … we had gone camping and done all these things. [The Den leader] came to the show on Saturday night, and all he’d ever seen is Chris in a tent, Chris leading activities in the outdoors. Then he gets to see me do this,” Chris said. “He’s like, ‘That’s crazy, that it’s the same person you know, and that you can do all of that [onstage].”
“That’s been the most interesting part of it for me, is all these people who know me for maybe years, but have never seen this part of me,” Chris said. “You don’t know Chris and Betsy until you see them sing — that’s when you really find out who they are.”
It’s also given the duo a deep connection with fellow members of the local theater world.
“You collect these friends in community theater, and they come see everything. When you actually consider that, they’re buying tickets to come see every show you’re in, and the community that you build around you…, it is like having a second family,” Betsy reflected. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful community-building experience.”
Betsy points to long history of both the organization and the building itself as a touchstone. After all, the Wilton Playshop is now in its 88th season.
“Having grown up in Wilton, it’s a fixture of the community — everybody knows that iconic red building — and the thing that struck me more recently is how it’s been around [since] early 1900s. Even some of my high school friends that came to see the show this week were like, ‘Oh my gosh, the Playshop is unchanged!’ It’s this little gem of history,” she said.
Betsy described a tangible example of that.
“You walk into it and you’re kind of stepping back into the history of it. And there are so many things that even the audience doesn’t know. If you go backstage, you’ll see signatures all over the walls. Everyone who does a show will sign their name and the year and the show. You can walk backstage and see signatures from the 50s and 60s,” Betsy said.
Both said the credit should be given to the volunteers who keep the Playshop running.
“The Playshop is not just the actors, …It’s this team that has put such extraordinary care into literally every single show, every concert, everything that they do. We’re a fun and interesting story, because we’re a married couple doing a show. But the Playshop has not really gotten the true appreciation. It is this fixture in the community, but it’s literally run on the love of the people who keep it going — volunteers who build sets, sew costumes, work backstage, and welcome audiences at the door.
Why This Weekend’s Performances Matter
As Sweeney Todd heads into its final weekend at Wilton Playshop, Chris and Betsy are clear on what they hope audiences will do.
From Betsy, the invitation is simple and direct: “Come support the community.” For her, buying a ticket is more than just choosing a night out; it’s part of sustaining a space that has anchored Wilton’s arts scene for generations, and that gave her a stage from high school through adulthood.
Chris focuses on the experience itself. “For me, it’s see this particular piece of theater,” he says, describing the show as a roller coaster that can change the way audiences think about Sondheim — and about what community theater can do in an intimate space like the Playshop.
With a powerhouse score, a story that swings from dark humor to heartbreak, and two of Wilton’s own at the center of it all, this weekend’s performances offer residents a chance to support a beloved institution, discover hidden talents in familiar faces, and spend an evening inside that place of local history and passion — before the barber’s chair is put away and the red building goes quiet again until the next show.
For its last weekend at the Wilton Playshop (15 Lovers Ln.), Sweeney Todd‘s curtain goes up at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 14 and Saturday, Nov. 15. Tickets are $30 for students and seniors, $35 for adults, and are available for purchase online.