Sweeney Todd on Broadway Tickets

By: Hugh Wheeler
Songs by: Stephen Sondheim
Director: Thomas Kail
Choreography: Steven Hoggett
Cast list: Josh Groban (as Sweeney Todd), Annaleigh Ashford (as Mrs. Lovett), Daniel Yearwood (as Anthony), Ruthie Ann Miles (as Beggar Woman), Maria Bilbao (as Johanna), Jamie Jackson (as Judge Turpin), John Rapson (as Beadle Bamford), Nicholas Christopher (as Pirelli/Standby for Sweeney Todd), Jeanna de Waal (Standby for Mrs. Lovett/Beggar Woman)
Design: Mimi Lien
Costumes: Emilio Sosa
Lighting: Natasha Katz
Sound: Nevin Steinberg
Other info: Music supervision by Alex Lacaimore, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick

The thriller musical is titled in full Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The show, with a book by Hugh Wheeler and a score by Stephen Sondheim, has appeared on Broadway three times before. The world-premiere production opened in 1979 and won eight Tony Awards out of nine nominations, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Actor and Actress awards for Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury — Sondheim's personal choices to play Todd and Lovett.

The first Broadway revival was in 1989, and the second in 2005. Both were nominated for Best Revival, and their respective stars — Bob Gunton and Beth Fowler, and Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone — all got acting nominations. This revival of Sweeney Todd on Broadway followed in its predecessors' footsteps!

Groban was Tony-nominated for his only other Broadway performance: as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 in 2017. His performance at the 2018 Tony Awards, which he co-hosted with Sara Bareilles, earned him two Emmy nominations, and his 20-plus-year music career got him three Grammy nominations.

Ashford is a Broadway veteran. Her Kinky Boots performance earned her a 2013 Tony nomination, and two years later, her You Can't Take It With You performance snagged her the win.

What to watch for

• This Sweeney Todd revival features Jonathan Tunick's orchestrations, as the original Broadway production did. Neither of the previous Sweeney Todd revivals used the full, original orchestrations.
• The show poster uses the same font and color for the musical's title as the original Broadway poster.
• Barber refuted? Sweeney Todd is a mini-Hamilton reunion: That show's director, Thomas Kail, and music supervisor, Alex Lacamoire, hold the same jobs for this production.
• Groban is such a big Sweeney Todd fan that he named his dog after the title character.
• The Sweeney Todd musical is based on a same-named 1973 play by Christopher Bond, but the title character actually first appeared in a Victorian-era serial fiction story called The String of Pearls. His story was immediately adapted into a few melodramas in the mid-to-late 1800s, too; one of those premiered on Broadway in 1924.
• When Sweeney Todd first opened on Broadway, the then-director of The Metropolitan Opera reportedly said he would have produced the show there given the opportunity. He saw Sweeney Todd's high-drama tale as "a modern American opera." Though the Met didn't end up producing the show, lots of other opera companies have.
• Sweeney Todd is the latest in a string of recent Sondheim revivals. His musicals Assassins and Company both played in New York in 2021, followed by Into the Woods and Merrily We Roll Along in 2022. Plus, the last production of Sweeney Todd in New York (an immersive Off-Broadway show in a theatre converted into a pie shop) was in 2017, alongside a Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park with George.