Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford on Surviving Sweeney Todd

Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford on Surviving Sweeney Todd

Speaking to Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban on a recent Thursday evening at 5 p.m., it was hard to imagine the pair were about to hit the stage for a sold-out Broadway crowd in just a few hours. Ashford was Zooming from her bathroom, hiding away from some construction noise in her Brooklyn apartment. Groban was already backstage at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, dressed in a cozy hoodie and beanie, looking more likely to curl up on the couch for a TV binge than slit people’s throats onstage as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. With a Sweeney Todd curtain call waiting, both actors were about as zen as could be.