Assassins premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on January 27, 1991, with book by John Weidman. It received its Broadway premiere only in 2004, delayed partly by the Gulf War (1991) and September 11 (2001) — its subject matter making producers nervous in wartime. The published text appeared from Theatre Communications Group.
The show presents every person who assassinated or attempted to assassinate an American president — from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley — in a non-linear structure that ignores chronology. They meet in a fairground shooting gallery, where a Proprietor offers them a gun and a chance to change the world. Each assassin gets a song in the musical style of their era: Booth sings a Civil War ballad, Czolgosz (McKinley’s assassin) sings a cakewalk, Hinckley and Squeaky Fromme sing a love duet.
The show’s thesis is genuinely disturbing: American assassins are not aberrations but products of the national ideology. The promise that anyone can achieve happiness through individual effort — the American Dream — creates, inevitably, people who blame the president when their individual happiness fails to materialize. The show connects assassination to the democratic process: both are attempts by the powerless to seize agency.
Collecting Assassins
Original Off-Broadway cast recording (RCA Victor, 1991): CD.
Broadway cast recording (PS Classics, 2004): CD.
Market values:
- Off-Broadway cast CD, sealed: $15–$40
- Published script (TCG), signed: $100–$300