See it if You like Sondheim, or anyone in the cast.
Don't see it if You don't want to be exposed to guns.
See it if You are interested in anything Sondheim ever wrote ... or just need a really great time in the theater!
Don't see it if You are afraid of guns (there are a lot of prop guns utilized) Read more
See it if you have even half a brain.This is a brilliant production of one of my favorite Sondheim shows.Performances are mind blowingly good.
Don't see it if your idea of a good musical is MJ or Sponge Bob.If you like Sondheim and appreciate creative theatre, see this.
See it if The intimate setting makes every seat in the house a good one. It sheds new light on why citizens would want to assassinate their president.
Don't see it if You prefer commercial musicals with gimicky plots.
See it if you want to experience perfect singing, interesting and absorbing staging and if you are a fan of this cast!
Don't see it if you aren't interested in political commentary
See it if you like Sondheim, you want something thought-provoking, you want to see some of the most amazing performers at their absolute best. GENIUS
Don't see it if you put the US on a pedestal, you don't like Sondheim's music, you don't like theater in the round
See it if If you’ve not seen Assassins, this is the production to see. Unexpected performances by a great ensemble. Will Swenson is riveting
Don't see it if Assassins is advanced theatre-going. Don’t let this be your first show.
See it if you want to see an all-star cast absolutely crush one of Sondheim's best scores in an intimate setting
Don't see it if you have no taste.
"I can’t be the only Sondheim nerd sick of respectful, minimalist approaches. Give us full orchestras, monumental design, directors eager to wrestle with convention; scale up, you cowards. Don’t relegate the full sonic and dramatic force of the past century’s greatest musicals to the concert hall or opera house. Or if you’re going to do it in a small venue like CSC, freak the hell out of us. No, those who long for an Assassins to disrupt our peace will have to wait until the next civic atrocity. Take discomfort in the fact that this ominous triumph will always wait for us in the dark, finger on the trigger."
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While the actors give excellent performances, the revival lacks emotion and heart which is strange considering the number of characters who die or who are wounded in the course of the show. It is as though they (and we) are numbed by so much depiction of killing.
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"Assassins is a particular piece. There is only one prop common to all of the characters: a gun. It is their strength, their sword, their sword arm for that matter. Because they welcome it, and everything for which is stands, they can and will murder – or at least try. But murder, in this case is not a blip on the monitor."
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"The production lacks the power to unsettle despite a fine cast of killers and wannabes who changed, or at least made, history gunning for presidents."
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"Assassins remains fascinating...The most discomfiting thing about watching Assassins now is the extent to which the isolated mindsets whose dots the musical connects through 120 years of U.S. history have cohered into movements since the show was written. “The country is not what it was,” sings Booth somberly, and many people now would agree. The other national anthem, as the song predicts, is getting louder every year."
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"5 stars!...Rifles and revolvers get plenty of play. That said, missing this show would be a shame — if you can snag a ticket. Set to open 19 months ago but delayed by the pandemic, director and designer John Doyle’s take on this darkly humorous slice of history is tight, insightful, and impeccably performed. It aims, fires, and hits the mark."
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"Director John Doyle’s electrifying staging of “Assassins,” Stephen Sondheim’s macabre masterpiece about our national infatuation with fame and our appetite for violence, is a revival to die for — figuratively, of course."
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"Are the protesters who violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 the contemporary descendants of the men and women who assassinated and attempted to assassinate the Presidents of the United States?
This is the disturbing query posed at the end of Classic Stage Company’s eagerly-anticipated Off-Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s one-of-a-kind 1990 musical “Assassins,” a nonlinear, critical-minded, and darkly comic examination of American assassins and would-be assassins."
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