Fall 2004
Assassins
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Produced and Directed by Justin Leader
Everybody's got the right...
Inspired by true events, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins details the lives of America’s most notorious criminals—those men and women throughout American history who either successfully or abortively attempted to assassinate the President of the United States.
Throughout the course of this controversial musical, the assassins, unhinged in time, form a community, stretching from the “pioneer,” John Wilkes Booth to the most recent failure, John Hinckley, all the while being observed by both the optimistic Balladeer , who admonishes them in song, and the bloodthirsty Proprietor, who goads them on towards their bloody deeds.
Darkly comedic and psychologically penetrating, Assassins is a cynical exploration of the American Dream and the upshot that can occur when someone decides that the only way to claim it for himself is to destroy that symbol which stands for everything he wanted and everything that held him back from achieving his dreams.
