The oldest and most violent means of seeking political redress is that of political assassination. It is also the plot for the Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins. This musical will soon be at Palm Coast, Florida where it is being performed at City Repertory Theater from September 23rd to October 2nd. It will be directed by John Sbordone.
The music will be overseen by Ben Beck and contains two acts that run roughly two hours.
This musical retells the stories of successful and attempted assassinations of American presidents by nine infamous American assassins. Included in this number are such infamous Americans as Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth. There are among this group of singing madmen armed with guns, grudges, and tempers they cannot control are less well-known political assassins.
Assassins is structured as an anthology. Each assassin has his own number devote to his own plot. This allows for a great variety of settings. It also allows for a great variety of musical styles for number is done in the style of popular music from the time that particular assignation occurred.
Despite its name, the show narrators are not the assassins. Instead, two fiction characters serve that role. One is the owner of a shooting range at a fair, who gives the assassins their weapons. The other is the balladeer that musically introduces the assassin and his story. Spliced through the show are scenes in which the assassins meet and interact with each other.
Through the musical, shared motivations of the assassins are explored. They all possessed a sick desire to be famous. For instance, John Wilkes Booth was a terrible actor who was famous for his failed performances and the horrible reviews of his shows. Now he is infamous for shooting Abraham Lincoln. Giuseppe Zangara, who tried to kill Franklin Delano Roosevelt, desired to be photographed so he would be famous.
This group of madmen with guns also all shared very twisted motivations. Booth was fiercely loyal to the Confederate States of America and to its lost cause of slavery. He believed killing President Lincoln would strike a massive blow against the Union for the Confederacy. Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist. He killed John F. Kennedy for Kennedy was a staunch anti communist. John Hinckley Junior who failed to kill President Reagan believed doing so would make Jodie Foster fall in love with him.
One of Charles Dickens most famous novels is his novel Oliver Twist. This is the story of a young boy named Oliver who was born in an orphanage. As a young man, he migrated to London seeking his fortune.
Now Oliver! is coming to Flagler Country. The novel is not coming. Instead, the musical based on the novel is coming to Flagler Country. It will be performed at the Flagler Playhouse in Bunnell. and will run from September 22nd to October 9th. Les Ober directs it and Jens Olivia will direct the music with the choreography being done by Terri Williams.
The musical contains two acts. In total, the show runs for roughly two and a half. Oliver! was adapted the Dickens novel in 1960 by Lionel Bart. It contains a large ensemble cast primarily of children with several supporting roles for adults.
Oliver! has some very entertaining and lighthearted songs in it. For instance, the villain Fagin has his own number. In it, he debates if he should give up crime to become employed and get married. Another such example is the musical’s opening number. In it, Oliver and the other boys at the orphanage sing about their dream of eating regular food instead of gruel.
Despite this, just as Charles Dickens original novel did. Oliver! deals with very mature themes. Chief among them is the perils of London’s working class. The show is set in the 1820s. In London, most of the city’s population resides in dirty and run down rooms in cramped buildings. These are unsafe and are also on the verge of collapsing and, in doing so, killing their occupants.
Another major theme is poverty. At the beginning of the musical, Oliver resides in a workhouse. This was a combination of orphanage and factory. Orphans as well as poor adults resided in them were they performed dangerous labor.
In London, Oliver is forced to survive on the streets. There he is taken in by a group of orphans. Their leader is an older boy called the Artful Dodger. They are a gang of pickpockets. Their employer Fagin, the villain, manipulates the boys and uses them to commit crimes and robberies across the city. As he is an orphan, Oliver believes his only options for survival are to either perform a dangerous job or become a criminal whose only prospect is a life of crime.
— Daniel DiQuinzio
