Main Menu
Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
2/17/98
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
____________________________________________________________________
NATCHITOCHES - It would be difficult to imagine a more unlikely topic for a musical, but Stephen Sondheim has woven together the stories of nine people who committed or attempted to commit political murder in America over a period of two centuries into the musical "Assassins." Sondheim's musical will be presented by the NSU Theatre March 6-9 at 7:30 p.m. in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium.
The play gives voice to the hopes, fears and furies of characters including John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and seven others by exposing the twisted thoughts that make them such intriguing figures. Crossing barriers of time and space, the assassins commiserate with each other, explaining their actions with pride, pain and dark humor.
"Sondheim always likes a challenge and to do something different," said Dr. Jim Stacy, who will direct the play. "Sondheim and John Weidman (who wrote the book for 'Assassins') were talking about the word 'assassin' at a party, and Sondheim learned that Weidman was doing research on presidential assassins. Sondheim wanted to see if he could do a musical on those who killed or tried to kill a president and began working on it."
In the play, eight men and women who killed or attempted to kill a president come together and convince Oswald to kill John Kennedy.
"That is the one assassination that stands out in people's minds perhaps because it was the first one to take place in the television age," said Stacy.
Even though the play features people who became well known because they murdered or attempted to murder America's head of state, Sondheim does not attempt to gain sympathy in his characterizations said Stacy.
"This play does not glorify those people and in no way justifies what they did or tried to do," said Stacy. "But it does look at their motivation for what they did.
"The assassins are the underside of the American dream which was come to this country, work hard enough and you'll have a home and a relative well-to-do life. But this play examines what happens when there is a personal and professional failure."
In fact, Stacy points out five of the characters were also failures at being assassins. And two of the assassins, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of William McKinley and Charles Guiteau, who killed James Garfield are largely forgotten.
"This is the type of play where we want to get people talking and get a perspective on assassinations in America," said Stacy.
After each performance, a discussion featuring area scholars will be held giving audience members a chance to exchange views on how the events portrayed affected this country.
Stacy warned audience members that the play does have adult themes and language and that simulated gunshots will be fired during the performance.
Admission is $4 for the general public, $2 for Northwestern faculty and staff and free for NSU and Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts students. For more information on "Assassins," call 357-6891.