Since 1979, Stephen Sondheim’s take on the Victorian myth about an exiled barber who pairs up with a cunning pie maker to seek revenge on the men who wronged him has delighted and enthralled audiences with its thrilling score, pitch black humor, and chaotic plot, but what is the real story behind this penny dreadful turned musical delight? Was there a real Sweeney Todd? Where did the story come from? And, most pressingly of all, what inspired Sondheim to spin this nauseating nightmare into gothic musical comedy gold? The answers just might surprise you as we delve into the history of Sweeney Todd.
For Daniel Mason, there s a clear connection between psychiatry and literature.
As a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, Mason has spent much of his career researching the subjective experience of mental illness and the influence of literature and culture on modern medical practices. And as an acclaimed novelist, the Palo Alto native has spent nearly two decades writing fiction and nonfiction inspired by his research.
Mason said his dual career took off unexpectedly when he was a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco. Between college and medical school, Mason, then 26, decided to conduct infectious disease research in Southeast Asia for a year. That trip, he explained, inspired his debut novel, The Piano Tuner, the basis for a 2004 opera of the same name.