Tony Award® winner Aaron Tveit stars in the title role with Tony Award winner Sutton Foster as Mrs. Lovett through May 5 only. Directed by Tony Award winner Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and choreographed by Olivier Award winner Steven Hoggett (Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been hailed as a New York Times Critic’s Pick, “a triumphant, must-see production” (Chicago Tribune), and “a riveting revival with big laughs, serious scares, and a thunderous 26-piece orchestra” (Entertainment Weekly).
In their “A Little Priest,” as elsewhere, the psychosexual drama of Sweeney takes the lead. Sweeney and Lovett are more busy punning by way of foreplay for you to focus much on the class war of the number. Their revenge plot is less a righteous up-yours to those above and more a personal crusade. It’s both, because everything in this musical means many things at once, but placing emphasis on the erotic side sets the production spinning in a particular direction. The second act plunges further into violence, with the city on fire and the killings piling up, and the emotions that get big while the focus remains tight. The thing still feels like a chamber opera even on a stage full of bodies. Steven Hoggett choreographs the ensemble to swirl like a murmuration of birds, in sync and inhuman. (He also did The Cursed Child, which explains why I expected everyone to bring out a wand.) The massed crowd isolates Sweeney and Lovett on the fringe and provides them with the anonymity they need to pull off their scheme. In the production’s most chilling moment, they disappear into it. You imagine the pair might rematerialize behind you as you wait at a stoplight some night soon.
Many fine productions, large-scale or intimate, have sauntered their way up and down Fleet Street since Hugh Wheeler’s book and Sondheim’s score premiered in 1979 in Harold Prince’s acclaimed staging. But the current revival at the Lunt-Fontanne is a thing apart. Thomas Kail, director of that latter-day groundbreaker Hamilton, has assembled all the pieces needed for what Sondheim himself finally summed up as “a movie for the stage.” The result is something both sumptuous and terrifying, truly a Sweeney Todd for the ages.
Digital Lottery:
Price: $30
Where: https://lottery.broadwaydirect.com/show/sweeney-todd-ny/
When: Lottery entries for each performance will be accepted starting 9AM the day prior to the performance until 3PM the day prior to the performance.
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Tickets are subject to availability.
General Rush:
Price: $49
Where: Lunt-Fontanne box office
When: Rush tickets are available at the box office on the day of the show when the box office opens.
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Subject to availability.
Standing Room Tickets:
Price: $40
Where: Lunt-Fontanne Box Office
Limit: Two per customer
Restrictions: Available day of performance only when the performance is sold out.
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