Sweeney Todd to Close on September 3

The award-winning Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd will close at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on September 3. At that time, it will have played 35 previews and 349 regular performances. The show recouped its $3.5 million investment in less than five months. A national tour is planned starting in the summer of 2007.

The show stars Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett), Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd), John Arbo (Jonas Fogg), Donna Lynne Champlin (Pirelli), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman), Manoel Felciano (Tobias Ragg), Alexander Gemignani (The Beadle), Mark Jacoby (Judge Turpin), Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony Hope), and Lauren Molina (Johanna). Tony Award winner Judy Kaye is scheduled to play Mrs. Lovett through August 13, while LuPone rehearses and stars in the Ravinia Festival production of Gypsy.

The production is directed and designed by John Doyle, with music supervision and orchestrations are by Sarah Travis, both of whom won Tony and Drama Desk Awards for their work. The show lost the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical to The Pajama Game.

With a book by Hugh Wheeler, adapted from Christopher Bond’s play, Sweeney Todd is based on the 19th-century legend of a London barber who is driven to murder when a malevolent judge takes his wife and child from him. His plan for revenge includes a cutthroat partnership with Mrs. Lovett, an enterprising businesswomen who is soon producing the tastiest meat pies in London.

In his TheaterMania
review, David Finkle wrote: “Doyle does what he does better than anyone else could possibly have done it, and has created one of Broadway’s all-time best shows in the process.”