Assassins

Background and productions

Background

In 1979, as a panelist at producer Stuart Ostrow's Musical Theater Lab, Sondheim read a script by playwright Charles Gilbert Jr. entitled Assassins. Inspired by its title and use of quotations from various historical figures who had attempted to assassinate American Presidents, Sondheim asked Gilbert for permission to use his idea. Gilbert consented and offered to write the book, but Sondheim declined, having already had collaborator John Weidman in mind. Weidman had written the book for Pacific Overtures and would work with Sondheim again on Road Show.

Gilbert's original concept involved a fictional Vietnam War veteran who becomes an assassin and around this central narrative he had woven diary entries, poems, and newspaper reports of historical assassins. Sondheim and Weidman, having no interest in the fictional element, focused the musical solely on the historical figures. Five assassins appear in both versions: John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Giuseppe Zangara, and Squeaky Fromme. The model for Gilbert's protagonist, Lee Harvey Oswald, also appears in the musical. The musical omits three assassins included in Gilbert’s script—Arthur Bremer (cut in rehearsals, but mentioned by name), Sirhan Sirhan (mentioned by name only), and John Schrank—and instead features Samuel Byck, Sara Jane Moore, and John Hinckley Jr., the last of whom had not yet attempted an assassination when Gilbert's version was written.

Aside from the title, Sondheim and Weidman also retained Gilbert's distinctive conceptual metaphor of the shooting gallery, presided over by a character called Fat Man (somewhat analogous to Weidman’s Proprietor) who is encouraging would-be assassins to "shoot the Prez and win a prize."

The first staged reading of the musical, at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1989, was directed by Jerry Zaks and featured Anthony Heald (Czolgosz), Paul McCrane (Hinckley), Michael Jeter (Zangara), Jonathan Hadary (Guiteau), Swoosie Kurtz (Fromme), Christine Baranski (Moore), Victor Garber (Booth), Kevin Anderson (Balladeer/Oswald) and Nathan Lane (Byck).

Productions

Assassins opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, and closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. Directed by Jerry Zaks the cast included Victor Garber, Terrence Mann, Patrick Cassidy, Debra Monk, Greg Germann, and Annie Golden. According to the Los Angeles Times, "The show has been sold out since previews began, reflecting the strong appeal of Sondheim's work among the theater crowd." Frank Rich in his review for The New York Times wrote that "Assassins will have to fire with sharper aim and fewer blanks if it is to shoot to kill." Only 140 subscribers could be seated for each performance. Billboard magazine noted that "Diehard Sondheim fans lined up outside the theater for up to 10 hours before curtain time, hoping to obtain cancellations, but only a few of them made it into the theater."

On October 29, 1992, Assassins opened in London at the Donmar Warehouse with direction by Sam Mendes and a cast that included Henry Goodman as Charles Guiteau and Louise Gold as Sara Jane Moore. The show ran for 76 performances, closing on January 9, 1993.

The first US regional production was mounted at Theatre Three in Dallas, July 15, 1992. The second was mounted by Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in August 1992. The San Jose Civic Light Opera in San Jose, California, presented a production in 1993, which featured the world premiere of the 13-piece orchestration by Michael Starobin. The Los Angeles premiere opened in 1994 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and included Patrick Cassidy (the original Balladeer) playing Booth, and Alan Safier as Guiteau.

The first Australian production opened in February 1995, presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company at the Fairfax Studio. Directed by Roger Hodgman, the cast featured John O'May, John McTernan and Bruce Myles.

Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production was originally scheduled for 2001 but was postponed to April 22, 2004, because the content was sensitive in light of the events of the September 11 attacks. After 101 performances at Studio 54, Assassins closed on July 18, 2004. Directed by Joe Mantello, with musical staging by Jonathan Butterell, Neil Patrick Harris starred in the roles of The Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald, with Marc Kudisch in an extended role as The Proprietor. Michael Cerveris played John Wilkes Booth, for which he received a Tony Award. The 2004 production was noted for a coup de théâtre: the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy projected onto Lee Harvey Oswald's T-shirt by projection designer Elaine J. McCarthy. On December 3, 2012, the Broadway cast reunited for a special benefit. Annaleigh Ashford stood in for Mary Catherine Garrison.

Cast and characters

Notable replacements

Off-Broadway: (1990–91)

Charles Guiteau: Davis Gaines (u/s)

Sara Jane Moore: Joy Franz (u/s)

The Balladeer: Davis Gaines (u/s)

Reunion Benefit Concert (2012)

Lynette Fromme: Annaleigh Ashford

Off-West End: (2014–15)

John Wilkes Booth: Michael Xavier

Sara Jane Moore: Anna Francolini

Synopsis

This synopsis reflects the current licensed version of the show. The published script of the 1992 Off-Broadway production is slightly different.

The show opens in a fairground shooting gallery where human figures trundle past on a conveyor belt. One by one, a collection of misfits enters, where the Proprietor of the game entices them to play, promising that their problems will be solved by killing a president ("Everybody’s Got the Right"). Leon Czolgosz, John Hinckley, Charles Guiteau, Giuseppe Zangara, Samuel Byck, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Sara Jane Moore are given their guns one by one. John Wilkes Booth enters last and the Proprietor introduces him to the others as their pioneer before he begins distributing ammunition. The assassins take aim as "Hail to the Chief" heralds Abraham Lincoln's offstage arrival. Booth excuses himself, a shot rings out and Booth shouts, "Sic semper tyrannis!"

The Balladeer, a personification of the American Dream, appears and begins to tell Booth's story ("The Ballad of Booth") as the scene changes to Richard H. Garrett's barn in 1865. Booth, mudstained and with a broken leg, is attempting to write his reasons for killing Lincoln in his diary but cannot hold the pen. He forces his associate David Herold to write for him at gunpoint. As Booth dictates, blaming Lincoln for the Civil War and for destroying the South, the Balladeer interjects that Booth's motives really had more to do with his personal problems, much to Booth's annoyance. When a Union soldier calls for Booth's surrender, Herold abandons him and surrenders. In desperation, Booth throws the Balladeer his diary so that he can tell his story to the world. The Balladeer reads out Booth's justifications, and Booth laments that his act will not be enough to heal the country. As the Union soldiers set fire to the barn, Booth commits suicide, and the Balladeer concludes that Booth was a madman whose treacherous legacy only served as inspiration for other madmen. The Balladeer rips Booth's diary and burns the pages.

The Assassins gather in a bar. Guiteau toasts to the U.S. presidency, speaking of his ambition to become Ambassador to France. Hinckley accidentally breaks a bottle, and Czolgosz flies into a rage, describing the bottle factory he works in and how many men die or are injured just to make a bottle. Guiteau jokingly tells Czolgosz to find another job, and the two begin to argue about the American Dream, with Guiteau defending America and Czolgosz dismissing it as a lie. Czolgosz grabs a bottle, barely stopping himself from throwing it. Booth urges Czolgosz to take control of his fate by breaking a bottle himself, but Czolgosz cannot. Zangara complains about his stomach pains, and Booth suggests fixing them by shooting Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Themes

Sacrificing for the greater good / fighting against political injustice

According to Valerie Lynn Schrader, out of the nine assassins in the musical, six of them (John Wilkes Booth, Giuseppe Zangara, Leon Czolgosz, Charles Guiteau, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Samuel Byck) are motivated to assassinate their targets due to what they view as "political injustice and sacrifice for the greater good," and among the six assassins, Booth and Czolgosz have been portrayed to have such motives as their primary reason for their assassination.

In the musical, John Wilkes Booth believes that his assassination on President Abraham Lincoln is for the greater good (and is an act of patriotism). The attribution of this motive to Booth is "supported historically: the Ford’s Theatre Museum notes that Booth was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward in order to put the Union in a state of disarray and anarchy." Raymond Knapp states that Booth's motivation is "conveyed musically, self-servingly by his own singing in a quasi-hymnic, sometimes inspirational style," based on the 1991 original Off-Broadway Version.

In the scene before "The Gun Song", the anarchist Emma Goldman inspires Leon Czolgosz to take action in light of his anarchist beliefs and the "societal injustice" that he has noticed. In "The Gun Song", Czolgosz has a "moody contemplation of how one gun connects backward to the many lifes it consumes in its manufacture," and later he claims that "[a] gun claims many men before it's done. Just one more," referring to his assassination target, President William McKinley. The political injustice in Czolgosz's timeline would be the "class inequalities in America."

Desiring attention

Many assassins in the musical have lines reflecting their need for attention, and according to Wang, "what unites each of the assassins is the desire for attention." In "How I Saved Roosevelt," Giuseppe Zangara is extremely angry about not having a photographer even at his execution: "and why there no photographers? For Zangara no photographers! Only capitalists get photographers!" Another assassin, Sara Jane Moore, "proclaims that one of her motives was 'so that her friends would know where [she] was coming from.'"

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme and John Hinckley Jr. are described as a "loving couple" in the musical, but the love that they show is in order to try to draw attention from two different persons. Unlike some assassins such as Zangara whose goals might reflect many of the themes of the musical, these two assassins have only one motive - to get attention from the person they love (for Fromme, it is Charles Manson; for Hinckley, it is Jodie Foster). In the short monologue before the song "Unworthy of Your Love", Hinckley states that "[he] will win [Foster's] love, now and for all eternity."

Idealism and optimism

This theme is mainly represented by Charles Guiteau. His idealism and optimism might make audience members "feel more sympathy for Guiteau than for some of the other assassins." Throughout the musical, Guiteau has lines and lyrics which show his idealism and optimism towards his life and the world. The quartet "The Gun Song", which Guiteau participates in, and the song "The Ballad of Guiteau" both portray him as an optimist while others are depicted as dark and not so optimistic. For example, in "The Gun Song", Guiteau "waltzes in cheerfully, holding a gun up admiringly, and declares: 'What a wonder is a gun! What a versatile invention,'" while Czolgosz just states that "[he hates] this gun." Guiteau's idealism is delusional, an exuberant but transparently flimsy cover for decidedly more earthly and self-interested ambition, and when his desires are thwarted, he gets angry. For example, he angrily shouts to Moore that "[he wants a kiss]" after Moore has already turned him down, and he assassinates President Garfield when denied the ambassadorship to France. His idealism and optimism are shown even in his execution scene (in "The Ballad of Guiteau"): he believes that "[he] shall be remembered" for assassinating President Garfield.

Pain, desperation, and disillusionment

Pain and desperation are central to Zangara's character: he is portrayed as a poor immigrant who suffers a very strong stomachache. In "How I Saved Roosevelt", Zangara's stomach pain and his desperation about not being able to cure his stomachache turn into his anger and hatred towards the upper class. According to Schrader, the real-life Moore attempted her assassination due to political reasons, yet in the musical, she does so due to an entirely different one: she is so frustrated and desperate about "how to understand and express herself" that she takes "drastic action." On the other hand, Byck's assassination attempt on President Richard Nixon is also to "satisfy his personal frustrations." His solo scene, titled "Have It Your Way" in the 2004 Broadway cast recording, presents his pain and disillusionment through his words and emotional expressions.

Unlike all the other assassins in the musical, Lee Harvey Oswald is portrayed as a desperate man attempting to commit suicide and as the only assassin who had no intention of killing a president. In the scene corresponding to this (the original 1991 Off-Broadway version is called "November 22, 1963"), Booth, as the leader of all assassins, tries to convince Oswald to assassinate President John F. Kennedy instead of committing suicide using countless tactics, yet he has to rely on other assassins to ultimately convince Oswald to do so. Schrader argues that "audience members who have encountered depression may find a level of consubstantiality with [him], at least until he is convinced to commit murder."

Community

As Schrader states, "Mark Fulk and Angela Howard suggest that 'family' is Assassins' central metaphor, particularly noting that family is 'the central concept that binds the group of American assassins and would-be assassins.'"

In the scene "November 22, 1963", the assassins join together in order to persuade Oswald to assassinate President John F. Kennedy while assuring him that he can "connect" to the other assassins. In addition, the assassins interact with each other despite coming from different time periods, in the scene "Ladies and Gentlemen a Toast", the scene "I Am a Terrifying and Imposing Figure", and the songs "Everybody's Got the Right", "Another National Anthem", and "Everybody's Got the Right (Reprise)".

Comparing the 1991 original production with other later versions, there is one song later added the musical, "Something Just Broke". This song is an assassin-free one, where five bystanders mourn the assassinated Presidents. These bystanders have different occupations and are in different timelines, yet are brought together by the assassination tragedies, indicating a sense of community among them.

Versions

The three versions of Assassins (original, London, and Broadway) are not identical, as some roles were combined, and the song "Something Just Broke" was new to the London production. In 1991, Theatre Communications Group published the libretto, which did not feature "Something Just Broke".

The current licensed version of the musical reflects the 2004 Broadway revival. Although the script does not combine The Balladeer and Oswald into a single role, many productions have followed the revival in doing so.

Musical numbers

"Everybody's Got The Right" – Proprietor and Assassins (save for Oswald)

"The Ballad of Booth" – Balladeer and Booth

"How I Saved Roosevelt" – Proprietor, Zangara and Ensemble

"The Gun Song" – Czolgosz, Booth, Guiteau and Moore

"The Ballad of Czolgosz" – Balladeer and Ensemble

"Unworthy of Your Love" – Hinckley and Fromme

"The Ballad of Guiteau" – Guiteau and Balladeer

"Another National Anthem" – Balladeer and Assassins (save for Oswald)+

"November 22, 1963" – Oswald and Assassins

"Something Just Broke" – Ensemble ++

"Everybody's Got The Right" (Reprise) – Assassins

Notes:

+ In the original production, the lead part among the Assassins for "Another National Anthem" is sung by Byck. However, in the revised 2004 score, the lead is sung by the Proprietor.

++Added for the 1992 London production

Cultural impact

Sondheim said that he expected backlash from the public due to the content. "There are always people who think that certain subjects are not right for musicals...[w]e're not going to apologize for dealing with such a volatile subject. Nowadays, virtually everything goes," he told The New York Times. He later wrote in Look I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) that "Assassins has only one moment I'd like to improve... Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, the show is perfect. Immodest that may sound, but I'm ready to argue it with anybody".

Assassins was featured in episode 6 of Netflix's The Politician. In the show, they are performing in a school production of the musical, which parallels events occurring in their own lives. The episode included a cover of "Unworthy of Your Love", sung by Ben Platt and Zoey Deutch.

In March 2025, a production of Assassins was canceled mid-run at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois due to student backlash over the use of the N-word by the character John Wilkes Booth. The student-run newspaper The Daily Northwestern featured the criticisms from some students who felt that usage of the word, whatever its context, was an unacceptable decision. The college-focused civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression categorized the campus outcry and eventual cancellation as deplatforming.

Awards and nominations

Original Broadway production

Although Assassins had not run on Broadway prior to 2004, the 1992 London production and 1991 Off-Broadway production led to a ruling by the Tony Awards Administration Committee that the musical is a revival instead of an original musical.

Recordings

Recordings of both the Off-Broadway production and the 2004 revival were released. The original Off-Broadway version lacks the song "Something Just Broke", which was added to the show for the subsequent London production. The 1990 recording does however include the full 11-minute spoken-word climactic scene "November 22, 1963". The 2004 Broadway recording adds "Something Just Broke" and several dialogue sections but only includes the second half of the "November 1963" scene.

While the original Off-Broadway production used just three musicians, the 1990 cast album was fully orchestrated by Michael Starobin, with 33 musicians directed by Paul Gemignani.

The 2021 Off-Broadway revival received its own cast recording on March 18, 2022, making it the third English language recording of the show. It includes the full score, and features the actor-musician cast members playing their respective instruments.