Spring 2007
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Produced and Directed by Justin Leader
To seek revenge may lead to hell...
Hailed by many as the greatest work in American musical theatre history, Stephen Sondheim’s operatic and gruesome Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street tells the classic tale of wrathful ex-convict, Benjamin Barker, who vows veangance upon the evil and lustful Judge Turpin, who had him falsely imprisoned sixteen years before so that he could bed Barker’s wife, Lucy.
Newly escaped from prison, Barker, under the pseudonym, Sweeney Todd, returns to London, only to discover that Lucy had committed suicide, after the Judge had raped her, and that he had also taken custody of their daughter, Johanna. In response, Todd sets up a murderous scheme with his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Lovett , who has been in love with him all of these years.
Based on British folklore, Sweeney Todd explores the twisted nature of obsession and revenge and examines how the corruption of society can turn even the most innocent among us into vicious killers.
