Stephen Sondheim is not known for his bankable concepts. He tells the story of a malevolent barber (“Sweeney Todd”), an ugly Italian woman who has no love (“passion”) and a broken friendship, told in retrospect (“Veerly We Roll With” “).
But his toughest sell-off was about the “killers” who told of those who attempted to kill the president, which opened in 1991. “Hey, Pal, feeling blue?” The first song goes. “Don’t know what to do? Hey, Pal, I mean you. Come here and kill a president!” “Heck,” it’s not.
The cast of The Criminals Dark Show includes John Wilkes Booth, Lynette “Squacky” Frome, and Lee Harvey Oswald. To give you an idea of what these neer-do-wells are doing, John Hinckley Jr. and Demi play a romantic duet to Jodie Foster and Charles Manson, called “Uvertie of your love”.
Original cast member Patrick Cassidy told the Post, “I’ve had great theatrical experiences, but the ‘murderers’ have beaten them all.” “For the origin of a Sondheim /[John] The Weidman show is the dream of every actor. “
The musical’s reputation has skyrocketed since it first premiered from Broadway in the small Playwrights Horizons A mixed review From the New York Times’ Frank Rich, and just 73 performances are underway. “Assassins” later won the Best Revival Tony Award in 2004, and for its 30th anniversary, the original cast is being reunited as part of free online at around 8pm on Monday night “Studio Ten Talks: Conversations with Patrick Cassidy
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Cassidy, who starred in Broadway in “42nd Street” and “Annie Get Your Gun”, has brought together actors Victor Garber, Annie Golden, Debra Monk, Terence Mann and more, as well as Sondheim, Weidman, music Director Paul Gamanieni and director Jerry Zucks, to share memories of their controversial show and to sing a few songs.
The experience is bubbling up for Cassidy’s fond and peculiar memories.
“People asked me, ‘What is a’ murderer ‘?,” he said of the early days. “I said, ‘Well, this is a musical.. About the president’s killers.’ And everyone backs away, ‘Really?’ “
He said: “It was scary. The real fear was this. “
One of the women in the audience was so nervous, she loudly announced her farewell while Cassidy was still singing.
The actor played a folk-singer called Ballader, and during a number about Charles Guateau, the lawyer killed President James A. Garfield, he simply lost it.
“After [Giuseppe] Zangara, [who attempted to kill president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt], Electrocuted, I sang the song ‘The Ballad of Guateo’, he said. “He is hanging, getting higher and higher, and toward the end of the number I remember a woman saying, ‘Norman, Norman, they’re gonna hang him! I get outta here, Norman! ”
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