The first national U.S. tour started on October 24, 1980, in Washington, D.C. and ended in August 1981 in Los Angeles, California. Lansbury was joined by Hearn [18] and this version was taped during the Los Angeles engagement and broadcast on The Entertainment Channel (one of the predecessors of today's A&E) on September 12, 1982. This performance would later be repeated on Showtime and PBS (the latter as part of its Great Performances series); [19] It was later released on home video through Turner Home Entertainment, and on DVD from Warner Home Video. The taped production was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards in 1985, winning three including Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (for George Hearn). [20] Music proved to be a key element behind the impact of Sweeney Todd on audiences. Over eighty percent of the production is set to music, either sung or underscoring dialogue. The score is one vast structure, each individual part meshing with others for the good of the entire musical machine. Never before or later in his work did Sondheim utilize music in such an exhaustive capacity to further the purposes of the drama. [4] Manning, Peter (2014). Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: A Study (Master's thesis). National University of Ireland Maynooth. pp.7–14.

Todd's reaction reveals that he is himself Benjamin Barker. Promising to keep his secret, Mrs. Lovett explains that Lucy poisoned herself with arsenic and that their then-infant daughter, Johanna, became the Judge's ward. Todd swears revenge on the Judge and the Beadle, and Mrs. Lovett presents Todd with his old collection of sterling silver straight razors, which persuades Todd to take up his old profession ("My Friends" and "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" – reprise). Elsewhere, Anthony spies a beautiful girl singing at her window ("Green Finch and Linnet Bird"), and the beggar woman tells him that her name is Johanna. Unaware that Johanna is his friend Todd's daughter, Anthony is immediately enamored ("Ah, Miss"), and he pledges to return for her, even after the judge and the Beadle threaten him and chase him away ("Johanna"). First Listen: Gaten Matarazzo, Annaleigh Ashford, Josh Groban's "God, That's Good!" From Sweeney Todd Cast Album - TheaterMania.com". September 7, 2023 . Retrieved September 8, 2023.Knapp, Raymond. "The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (2009)". Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-14105-3. p. 333.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller", playbill March 2014, Lincoln CenterThe 61st Annual Tony Awards / Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival Chicago ( Great Performances) / New York City Opera: Madama Butterfly ( Live from Lincoln Center) (2008) Martinfield, Sean. "Stephanie Blythe on Mrs. Lovett". Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar, September 22, 2015. When Sondheim first brought the idea for the show to director Harold Prince, his frequent collaborator, Prince was uninterested, feeling it was a simple melodrama that was not very experimental structurally. However, Prince soon discovered a metaphor in which to set the show, making what Sondheim had originally envisioned as "a small horror piece" into a colossal portrait of the Industrial Revolution, and an examination of the general human condition of the time as it related to men like Sweeney Todd. Said Sondheim, "Hal's metaphor is that the factory turns out Sweeney Todds. It turns out soulless, defeated, hopeless people. That's what the play's about to him; Sweeney Todd is a product of that age. I think it's not. Sweeney Todd is a man bent on personal revenge, the way we all are in one way or another, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the time he lived in, as far as I'm concerned." [4] However, Sondheim accepted Prince's vision as a different way to do the show, and as an opportunity to do the show on a large scale, knowing that small-scale productions could be done at any time. When I first spoke to Tim about Sweeney Todd, he wanted to create a world that felt mid-victorian, without making it too precious, and tried to have a little bit fun with it as well” -Colleen Atwood