Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at South Coast Repertory

With its razor-sharp wit and extraordinary songs, this Tony Award-winner has been called "more fun than a graveyard on the night of the annual skeleton's ball" (New York Daily News). The story follows Sweeney Todd as he settles into a barber shop, above Mrs. Lovett's struggling pie shop, and plots revenge on the lecherous judge who wronged Todd and his family. The barber's strange alliance with the pie-maker seems to provide the perfect solution to their problems. The themes in Sweeney—power, abuse of power, revenge and responsibility—continue to resonate with 21st-century audiences, Nicholson noted.