Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford reportedly set for ”Sweeney Todd” revival

A Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd is slated for spring 2023, with Josh Groban in the title role and Annaleigh Ashford as Mrs Lovett.

With a score by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, Sweeney Todd tells the story of a Fleet Street barber who returns to London hell-bent on revenge. Mrs Lovett, the proprietress of a pie shop situated just beneath Sweeney’s salon, has an idea of how to dispose of the bodies.

The Broadway plans are according to Philip Boroff’s Broadway Journal, which broke the story. No official announcement has been made, although we’ve been hearing this particular rumour for months.

Nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in The Great Comet, Groban was last seen on Broadway as a special guest in Freestyle Love Supreme. A Tony Award winner for You Can’t Take It With You, Ashford was last seen on Broadway in the revival of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George. That particular production was set for the West End, before plans were put on hold by the pandemic. Their current status is unknown.

Allegedly, producer Jeffrey Seller and director Thomas Kail (the team behind Hamilton) are attached to the project. It would be the latest in a string of significant Sondheim revivals in recent years, following CSC’s Assassins, the West End and Broadway revival of Company, the Encores! Broadway transfer of Into the Woods, and the forthcoming NYTW production of Merrily We Roll Along with Daniel Radcliffe.

Widely considered the greatest musical composer of his generation, Stephen Sondheim died last November at the age of 91.