SWEENEY TODD

Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s musical adaptation of Sweeney Todd can be traced back to a mid-19th century penny dreadful called The String of Pearls, which centers heavily around horror-filled sensationalism and escapism for the increasingly literate working class. In this conceptual take on the tale, I will be taking directorial inspiration from the minimalistic 2005 Broadway revival and setting the show in a print shop, fully embracing the Brechtian elements that Sondheim and Wheeler incorporate into the script and allowing the shop workers to perform the story for one another as they might have done when the original story was being printed. In doing so, I will also be exploring the relationship between entertainment and "intellectualism" through highlighting the  historical importance of theatre and performance within the working classes.