Haunting, sinister and darkly funny, Sweeney Todd is armed to give you the creeps in a way most musicals can’t.

How perfect. Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical thriller Sweeney Todd opens in San Francisco this weekend, on Friday the 13th.

Everyone’s favorite demon barber of Fleet Street will play a limited 5-week engagement at The Eureka Theatre (Jackson @ Battery) through August 11.

Organizers at Ray of Light Theatre who are staging the production promise “you’ll learn about this sordid character, watch as his sanity crumbles and sit agape as he begins a closelyshaved killing spree that leaves the residents of Fleet Street both terrified and well-fed.”

Sounds like a perfectly dark, intense night on the town.

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Winner of 8 Tony statues and 9 Drama Desk awards, Sweeney Todd is set in 19th Century England. It tells the  story of Benjamin Barker (alias Sweeney Todd), who returns to London after 15 years banishment on false charges. When he discovers that his wife poisoned herself after being raped by the judge who sentenced him, he vows revenge on the judge and later, the whole world. He teams up with a pie maker, Mrs. Lovett, and opens a barbershop in  which he slits the throats of customers that she then bakes into meat pies.

As they say: there will be blood!

LISTEN: SWEENEY TODD MUSIC CLIPS – From the Broadway Cast recording

  • Johanna
  • Pirellis Miracle Elixir
  • The Worst Pies in London
  • The Ballad of Sweeney Todd

San Francisco Bay Area Film and TheaterSweeney Todd

Ray of Light Theatre, San Francisco

Show dates: July 12 – August 11, 2012
Show times: Thursday – Saturday @ 8pm, Saturday and Sunday @ 2pm
Venue: The Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St. (at Battery)

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