The original production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — the one with the Sondheim score — opened on Broadway on March 1, 1979. For a show that seems to get revived and restaged somewhere every few weeks nowadays, its Broadway run was surprisingly short. It closed on June 29, 1980 after 19 previews and 557 performances.
That's not nothing of course but, for example, They're Playing Our Song opened a few weeks earlier and lasted almost twice as long. And a few months after that, Evita opened — with the same director — and ran three times as long. I suspect most people would agree that Sweeney Todd is a way better musical than either of them.
One reason The Demon Barber of Fleet Street didn't barber longer on Broadway was that it was an expensive show with a pretty large cast and a 26-piece orchestra. I also think that it was, like many a Sondheim show, not sufficiently appreciated at the time and that love for it has grown after so many productions in so many places. I've seen around eight different stagings of it, only one of which — the national touring company which parked in Los Angeles for a month or two — had the size and scope of the original. It often gets revived in "concert" style with minimal (if any) sets and costuming.
Apart from one scene in the Hal Prince tribute show, Prince of Broadway, the last time the gruesome Mr. Todd was on The Great White Way was 2005 when Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris starred in a version with smaller sets, smaller cast and smaller orchestra. Even with two major stars, it only ran eleven months.
Still, that production was positively lavish compared to the 2017 off-Broadway mounting in Greenwich Village which I attended with my friend Amber. It was described as an "immersive production," meaning the tiny cast was all around you in a small theater with most of us seated at tables. The actor playing Sweeney literally "killed" someone on ours.
How tiny was the cast? Eight people…with a three-piece orchestra. We both loved it but it also made me eager to see the show again in its original configuration.
Well, Sweeney Todd is about to get what I was surprised to learn will be its first full-sized revival on Broadway. Josh Groban has the title role and Annaleigh Ashford will play Mrs. Lovett. As you may have noticed during The Pandemic, I often take an interest in some show that is soon to open in New York even though I am unlikely to get back there to see it. I didn't get back there to see Billy Crystal's Mr. Saturday Night, which closed before most folks expected it to. I also didn't get back to see the Hugh Jackman Music Man, which just closed.
The new Sweeney Todd begins previews at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on February 26 and its opening night will be March 26. Depending on how long it runs, I may actually go east to see it…but maybe not. I just looked at what they're charging for tickets. The prices are about what you might expect from a show about a scalper.
A lot of the info on this new production can be found on the show's website where I just spotted something that made me laugh out loud. I didn't create this. It's actually there on the website…
That's right: American Express is teaming up with a barber who kills the people he shaves. As a longtime cardholder, I always thought AmEx was kind of a cutthroat operation and now I have proof.