New Jersey City University Presents: Sweeny Todd

One of the most infamous and dark musicals ever written, Sweeney Todd is the unsettling tale of a Victorian-era barber who returns home to London after fifteen years of exile to take revenge on the lecherous judge who framed him, ravaged his young wife, and ruined his life. When revenge eludes him, Sweeney swears vengeance on the entire human race, murdering as many people as he can, while his business associate Mrs. Lovett bakes the bodies into meat pies and sells them to the unsuspecting public. Perhaps composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s most perfect score, Sweeney Todd is lush, operatic and full of soaring beauty, pitch-black comedy, and stunning terror. It’s one of the signal achievements of the American musical theater of the last fifty years, and it’s the high watermark of Sondheim’s six remarkable collaborations with director Harold Prince.