The 2003-2004 season and broadway musical theatre as a political conversant

When the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins opened at the Roundabout Theatre in April 2004, critics’ responses to its aesthetic accomplishments were mixed. Some witnessed an excellent and underrated musical in a superb production; others judged Sondheim’s score as either weak or not well served by John Weidman’s book.1 But all commentators agreed that the historical moment-almost three years after 9/11-added to the complexity of assessing Assassins’s political efficacy. Some reviewers felt the production wrongly sympathized with the thirteen real-life assassins the musical represents; others felt that Sondheim, Weidman, and director Joe Mantello clearly condemned those who would “kill a President,�? even if in the U.S., “everybody’s got the right to their dreams,�? as the lyrics of the opening song go.2.