Revival Of Sweeney Todd To Launch 2007-08 Season

John Doyle's recent Tony Award-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd will play American Conservatory Theater for a limited engagement August 30 through September 30. A Sweeney Todd national tour casting call released last week revealed the dates of the A.C.T. presentation, which will precede the national tour of the production.

Doyle's spare, macabre, and thrilling re-imagining of the musical-considered to be one of Sondheim's masterpieces-features a cast of ten actors who also serve as the show's orchestra, playing their own instruments onstage. The A.C.T. presentation of Sweeney Todd launches the company's 2007-08 season. Further details on the season's offerings will be announced in March.

Tickets for Sweeney Todd will be available in April via A.C.T. subscription packages. Single tickets for the production will be available in August. Patrons interested in being sent subscription information when it is available should call the A.C.T. subscriptions office at 415.749.2250. Patrons interested in group sales should call Edward Budworth at 415.439.2473.

A gothic musical set in the brutal environs of 1765 London, Sweeney Todd tells the story of the infamous "demon barber of Fleet Street" and his meat pie-making assistant, whose business thrives as their customers disappear. Universally acclaimed upon its Broadway debut in 2005 (following a successful London run), Sweeney Todd was praised by Ben Brantley of the New York Times as "one helluva show. . . . (that) burrows into your thoughts with the poisoned seductiveness of a campfire storyteller who knows what really scares you."

Doyle's Sweeney Todd was nominated for best revival of a musical at the 2006 Tony Awards and won Doyle a Tony Award for best director of a musical and orchestrator and music supervisor Sarah Travis a Tony Award for best orchestrations. The production also won the Drama League, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for best revival of a musical and was awarded a special citation by the New York Drama Critics Circle. Both A.C.T.'s presentation of Sweeney Todd and the production's subsequent national tour reunite the Broadway design team: director Doyle (who also serves as scenic designer and costume designer), lighting designer Richard Jones, sound designer Dan Moses Schreier, and orchestrator and music supervisor Sarah Travis.

Sweeney Todd debuted at Broadway's Uris Theatre on Feb. 6, 1979, with a cast led by Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury--both of whom won Tony Awards for their performances. Next month marks the beginning of the filming of the Dreamworks Pictures version of Sweeney Todd directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. -- www.act-sf.org