The Stephen Sondheim Society

Words & Music: Stephen Sondheim

Book: John Weidman

Based on an idea by Charles L. Gilbert, Jr.

Premise: This darkly satirical musical reframes American history through the eyes of those who attempted – successfully or not – to kill US presidents. Structured as a surreal carnival sideshow, the piece weaponises American musical traditions – vaudeville, folk ballads, barbershop quartets, patriotic Sousa-style marches and Bacharach pop – to undercut the myth of the “American Dream,” exposing how frustration, alienation and entitlement can curdle into violence. By giving voice to figures from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, Assassins invites audiences not to condone their acts but to confront the unsettling continuity between personal disillusionment and national mythology, turning the musical stage into a mirror for America’s darkest obsessions.

​​

Background: The idea for a musical about US Presidential assassins originated with playwright Charles Gilbert Jr., who wrote a musical revue called Assassins while at graduate school in the late 1970s. He submitted the idea to Stuart Ostrow’s Musical Theater Lab, who passed on the script, although his two-act ,15–song version was produced by Theatre Express in Pittsburgh in January 1979. Ostrow mentioned the idea in passing to Sondheim, who was "haunted by the idea", and a few years later, when director/ playwright John Weidman brought his own idea for a show about presidential assassins to Sondheim, the composer's interest was rekindled. Sondheim was intrigued by the theatrical potential of turning a gallery of misfits into a vaudeville of American violence, and he and Weidman – with Gilbert's blessing – reshaped the premise into a full-length piece. Their collaboration built on their earlier partnership on Pacific Overtures (1976), with Weidman providing a sharply ironic book and Sondheim weaving a score of pastiches that mirror the eras of each assassin. The project incubated through the 1980s before finally reaching the stage at Playwrights Horizons in 1990.

​

When the show opened, it was greeted with a mix of admiration and controversy. Critics were struck by its audacity, but many accused it of being “un-American” or in “gleeful bad taste”, uncomfortable with the idea of assassins sharing the stage in a satirical vaudeville. The show ran for only 73 performances, but over time its reputation grew as audiences and scholars began to see its structural daring and thematic sharpness more clearly. A 1992 London production helped solidify its artistic merit, and the 2004 Broadway revival, directed by Joe Mantello, won multiple Tony Awards, cementing the work as a central part of the Sondheim canon.

​​

Major productions/concert performances/recordings:

​​

• 1989 Playwrights Horizons Workshop

• 1990 Playwrights Horizons Production

• 1992 Signature Theatre Production

• 1992 London Production

• 2004 Broadway Production

• 2008 London Production

• 2010 London Production

• 2012 Reunion Concert

• 2014 London Revival

• 2017 Encores! Off-Center Production

• 2018 Dublin Production

• 2019 Watermill Production

• 2021 Off-Broadway Revival

• 2023 Chichester Production
  ​​