BALTIMORE — It takes a certain kind of warped sensibility to find the light side of cannibalism. But the late musical theater composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim was up to the task.

Some of the pioneering theater maker’s papers are going on view to the public at the Library of Congress starting Tuesday — and among the gems are 40 pages of alternative lyrics for “A Little Priest,” a song from perhaps Sondheim’s best-known show, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

Sondheim is the much lauded-composer and lyricist who won eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize and Kennedy Center Honors before he passed away in 2021 at age 91. He is widely credited by scholars with helping a quintessentially American art form come of age by tackling complex subjects that explored the dark side of the human experience, and by his experiments with musical form that pushed the boundaries of what theater could be.

The 5,000-item collection includes manuscripts from some of Sondheim’s most celebrated shows, drafts for songs that were cut from the musicals before opening night, and special birthday tunes that he wrote for friends. The lyrics and music will be unveiled publicly on Tuesday, while the remainder of the papers will become available later this summer, according to a library news release.

“Stephen Sondheim has been credited with reinventing American musical theater,” Susan Vita, chief of the library’s music division, wrote in the release. “The wit, intelligence and theatrical daring of his work has succeeded in the way most great art does — it illuminates the human condition.”

Highlights of the collection include:

—The manuscript for the musical about the avant-garde film director Luis Buñuel that Sondheim was working on when he died.

—A spiral notebook titled “Notes and Ideas” from the composer’s years as an undergraduate at Williams College in Massachusetts that contain some of his earliest musical experiments.

—A new version of the lyrics of “Putting iI Together” that Sondheim wrote in the mid-1980s for the singer Barbra Streisand, who wanted to record the song for “The Broadway Album.” At her request, Sondheim changed the song’s setting from an artist’s studio to a stage in the Manhattan Theater District.

—Alternative lyrics for some of the composer’s most famous songs: “Side by Side” from the musical “Company”; “I’m Still Here” from “Follies” and dozens of pages of alternative lyrics for “A Little Priest.”

In that number, the serial killer Sweeney Todd and his landlady, Mrs. Lovett, hatch a plan to dispose of their victims’ bodies by baking them into meat pies and selling them to an unsuspecting public. The two make a series of increasingly outrageous puns about the suitability of various professions for being incorporated into a puff pastry shell. The Sondheim papers reveal that the “winners” were culled from a list of about 150 possible professions and types of people.

Here, for example, is a lyric that made the cut. In it, Sondheim riffs on the err, unsavory nature of elected officials:

“Mrs. Lovett: Here’s the politician so oily / it’s served with a doily/ Have one!

“Sweeney Todd: “Put it on a bun./ Well, you never know if it’s going to run.”

If you go

The Sondheim Papers are available for viewing Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Performing Arts Reading Room at the Library of Congress, 10 First St. SE, Washington, D.C. Free. For details, visit loc.gov. or call 202-707-5000.

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