Ready, aim, sing
When Troy Nickerson tells people he is directing a show called “Assassins,” they always ask the same incredulous question.
“And it’s a musical?”
It is indeed a musical, meaning that John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme and other infamous president-stalkers burst into song regularly.
It is, in fact, one of the most talked-about musicals of the last 15 years. The composer is Stephen Sondheim, one of the reigning geniuses of the Broadway musical and the man who wrote such theatrical staples as “Sweeney Todd” and “Company.”
“Assassins,” which opens Friday at the Spokane Civic Theatre’s Firth J. Chew Studio Theatre, is hardly the usual community theater fare. It begins in a carnival shooting gallery and ends in a certain Dallas book depository.
“It has adult situations, adult language and gunshots,” said Nickerson. “Lots of gunshots.”
When it was first produced in 1991 in a small off-Broadway production, New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote: “Sondheim and his collaborator, writer John Weidman, say the unthinkable, although they sometimes do so in a deceptively peppy musical-comedy tone.”
When it was revived in a 2004 Broadway production, Times critic Ben Brantley wrote: “Let it be stated that ‘Assassins’ does not celebrate its homicidal subjects. Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Weidman are simply posing a question that arises in many people’s minds when they read accounts of shocking, irrational crimes: ‘Why would anyone do that?’ “
He concluded that it “has an eloquence and intensity that makes a compelling case for a misunderstood show.”
One new song has been added since the show’s premiere, titled “Something Just Broke,” which acknowledges the chilling and sickening impact of these gun-toting assassins.
“Assassins” has been described variously as touching, funny, thoughtful, audacious and creepy. And those are some of the reasons that Nickerson wanted to do it.
“This has been a passion of mine for at least 10 years,” he said. “It seems so new and edgy. The music and the book are both incredibly interesting.”
“Assassins” is also unusually difficult to produce. The Sondheim songs are not easy to sing and the acting challenges are immense. This is a show, after all, in which actors have to convey the confused minds of people like Fromme and John Hinckley.
Yet Nickerson said his cast is up to the challenge.
“The cast is incredibly excited about this show,” he said.
The Civic plans to enter this show in the 2007 Kaleidoscope State Community Theatre Festival in Walla Walla.
The 19-person cast includes Patrick McHenry-Kroetch as John Wilkes Booth, George Green as Lee Harvey Oswald and Abbey Crawford as Fromme.
The music will consist of keyboards, played by musical director Gary Laing, accompanied only by a drummer.
As for the set, Nickerson said, “You won’t recognize the Studio Theatre.”
The Studio Theatre is the Civic’s intimate downstairs space, often described as a “black box.”
In other words, it’s a fitting place for a subject this dark.