Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: History and Key Facts

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (often referred to simply as Sweeney Todd) is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.

Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway in 1979 and in the West End in 1980. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Olivier Award for Best New Musical. It has been revived in many productions and inspired a film adaptation. A panel of five American critics assembled by New York magazine in 2011 described the musical as being among the three "greatest" musicals.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.