Stephen Sondheim was being stymied by historical events. After the truly massive success of Into The Woods, he delved into darker subjects for his next show, 1990’s Assassins. An exploration of the American Dream and the broken people it fails, the show opened Off-Broadway just a month before the First Gulf War began. Public sentiment during wartime didn’t favor criticism of US culture, and the show never transferred to Broadway. When it finally did land on The Great White Way in 2004, THAT production was delayed from its intended 2001 opening due to 9/11. Here is a “C-grade” VHS audience filming of the Broadway Production from 2004, with Neal Patrick Harris and Michael Cerveris. It’s watchable, but it isn’t great.
For the truly truly curious, this nearly unwatchable (but with okay sound) bootleg of the original Off Broadway production in 1990 is available. With Victor Garber, Terrence Mann, and Patrick Cassidy, amongst others. [Ed. note: This is an earlier version of the script, without “Something Just Broke”. It’s funnier and tighter than the 2004 production.]
One curiosity from Assassins is the Original Cast Recording from 1990 [YT album, 56m] . The production had used a 3-piece band, intending to expand the score when transferring to Broadway. The orchestrations were completed after the show closed, and when the cast went in to record, it was the first time they had ever heard these arrangements of the songs they had been performing for weeks.
Sondheim, writer John Weidman, and others discuss the show in this Video Conversation Piece [1h6m]. Full of insights from the creative team.
2021 marks the 30th Anniversary of the premiere of Assassins, and this was marked, like much else in this pandemic era, with online panels and observances. Patrick Cassidy hosted The Assassins Reunion Show! [2h37m] in March, bringing together the creative team and most of the stars of the 1990 production for chat and reminiscence. Stars In The House brought together many of the same people in April. [1h30m] And members of the 1990 cast, the 2004 cast, and the upcoming 2021 production (directed by John Boyle) assembled for Tell The Story: Celebrating Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins [1h]
Any show this deeply researched has ancillary reading material! This excellent honors thesis from 2011 digs into the themes of the show, exploring how to approach a production. The use of pastiche in the show is explored in this article here, and in this one which includes sound clips for comparison and reference. And there’s some lovely academic hand-wringing about the show in this lengthy PDF.
Finally, two little historical bits referenced in the show: Charles Guiteau’s book The Truth, And The Removal, and some clips from Samuel Byck’s audio tapes.