Meow Meow is Mrs Lovett
We are thrilled to reveal award-winning radical entertainer, Meow Meow, will play the iconic part of Mrs. Lovett in our hugely anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical masterpiece, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and joins previously announced Ramin Karimloo who stars in the title role.
Directed by The Rep’s Artistic Director Joe Murphy, and designed by award-winning designer Elin Steele, The Rep’s production of the razor-sharp musical comes to Birmingham from Saturday 4 July – Sunday 9 August.
With music supervision and orchestral reduction by Dr. John Rigby and casting by Abby Galvin CDG.
Meow Meow’s unique brand of subversive and sublime entertainment has hypnotised, inspired and seduced audiences worldwide from London’s West End to Carnegie Hall, to the Hollywood Bowl, to the Sydney Opera House. Her original music theatre works have played from Berlin to Berkeley, to Edinburgh to Shanghai and have been presented by David Bowie, Pina Bausch and Mikhail Baryshnikov amongst others.
Meow Meow’s theatre credits include Titania (Emma Rice’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe), Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls (Royal Philharmonic at Royal Albert Hall), La Maîtresse – a role created for her in Michel Legrand and Kneehigh’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on London’s West End, Jenny in Die Dreigroschenoper (with the London Philharmonic in London and Paris), and Anna 1 and 2 in Die Sieben Todsünden at the Berlin Konzerthaus under Vladimir Jurowski, and at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall with Orchestra Victoria, Victorian Opera, and in San Francisco under Edwin Outwater. She has performed as Pegleg in Tom Waits’ The Black Rider with Orchestra Victoria, Sitwell/Walton’s Facade at Berlin Konzerthaus, cond Jurowski and Louis Andriessen’s De Materie at Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her work also includes the narration of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale for Melbourne Symphony, and she curated their orchestral programme: The 20’s And All That Dissonance. She has been presented by Renée Fleming at the Kennedy Center, DC. Meow Meow is the recipient of numerous international theatre and performance awards and in 2025 was made a Fellow of New York University’s Center for Ballet.
On joining the cast, Meow Meow said: “I can’t wait to hurl myself into the dubious deliciousness and dangerous world of Sweeney Todd with Joe Murphy, Ramin Karimloo and the gang at Birmingham Rep. Heady days ahead!”
The Rep’s Artistic Director and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Director, Joe Murphy added: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Meow to the cast. Mrs. Lovett demands a performer with impeccable comic timing, musical command, and a taste for the macabre — and she delivers all of that in spades. Her genius brings a thrilling theatrical edge to Sweeney Todd and our audiences are in for something truly special.”
Further casting and full creative team will be announced in the coming weeks.
First performed on Broadway in 1979, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler‘s 12-time Tony Award-winning masterpiece is considered one of the greatest musicals ever written.
Wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years, Benjamin Barker returns to Victorian London as the mysterious barber, Sweeney Todd.
Upon finding out he’s lost everything he ever loved, Sweeney swears revenge and so begins a chilling tale of murder, macabre and Mrs Lovett’s pies!