Patti LuPone Will Make Broadway Musical Return as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd

Broadway.com has learned that Tony Award winner Patti LuPone is expected to headline the upcoming Broadway revival of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler musical Sweeney Todd. The show is aiming for a November 3 opening at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Also reported on Broadway.com is that the cast will include Michael Cerveris, Mark Jacoby, Benjamin Magnuson and Lauren Molina.

LuPone previously took on the role of Mrs. Lovett in a concert mounting of Sweeney Todd that was first produced by the New York Philharmonic and was later presented by the San Francisco Symphony and Ravinia Festival in Illinois. The show was broadcast on PBS and is available on DVD. The past for summers she has performed in Sondheim musicals at the Ravinia Festival. In addition to Sweeney Todd, she has appeared there in A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George and Passion. She is scheduled to appear in the composer's Anyone Can Whistle at the Festival on August 26, 2005. LuPone also recently participated in the Children and Art concert at the New Amsterdam Theatre, which was held as a tribute to Sondheim on the eve of his 75th birthday. At the event she sang Sweeney Todd's "A Little Priest" with George Hearn who appeared opposite LuPone in the aforementioned concert mountings of the musical.

LuPone is a Broadway legend, thanks mostly to her work in musicals. She won a 1980 Tony Award for her performance in Evita. Her other musical credits on the Great White Way include The Beggar's Opera, The Robber Bridegroom for which she earned a Featured Actress Tony nomination, Working, Oliver! and Anything Goes which netted her a 1988 Best Actress Tony nomination. However her last appearance in a fully-staged production of a musical was all the way back in 1993 when she starred in the West End premiere of Sunset Boulevard. Since then she has only appeared in concert mountings of shows including the Ravinia entries, her own solo pieces and Encores! mountings of Pal Joey and Can-Can. She was last featured on Broadway in the 2001 revival of the play Noises Off.

Sweeney Todd tells the tale of the "demon barber of Fleet Street," fresh out of jail for a crime he did not commit, who cooks up a macabre revenge scheme with his dazzlingly demented accomplice, Mrs. Lovett.

Directed and designed by John Doyle, this production of Sweeney Todd is expected to start performances on the Great White Way on October 3.

A production spokesperson could not confirm any casting for the musical.