Page "Dorothy Loudon" Paragraph 5

In 1980, Loudon replaced Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

In reviewing her performance for the Christian Science Monitor, David Sterritt said, " Her body sways like a reed in the emotional storms of her own scatter-brained creation, and her off-hand manner becomes still more off-handed when the most explosive matters are at stake ... Miss Loudon gives a comic characterization in the most classical tradition.

" The following year she co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Julia Barr in the play The West Side Waltz.

In 1982 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

She appeared in the 1983 Jerry Herman revue Jerry's Girls ; that same year she played the role of the miserable middle-aged actress Dotty Otley on Broadway in Michael Frayn's farce Noises Off, a huge hit.