Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins Opens CDC Theatre’s 98th Season

CDC Theatre, New Jersey’s oldest continually producing community theatre, oped its 98th season Friday, October 7 at 8pm with the bold, original, disturbing and alarmingly funny musical Assassins.
A multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical tour-de-force with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, Assassins combines Sondheim’s signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music with a panoramic story of our nation’s culture of celebrity and the violent means some will use to obtain it, embodied by America’s four successful and five would-be presidential assassins.
Assassins lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, in a one-act historical “revusical” that explores the dark side of the American experience. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, writers, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, bend the rules of time and space, taking us on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in which assassins and would-be assassins from different historical periods meet, interact and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream.
Director Alan Van Antwerp says, “In the weeks leading up to the election, there is never been a better time to produce a musical about the men and women who felt the peaceful transition of power we strive for every first Tuesday in November was not enough. Assassins challenges us to see the stories behind those who felt alienated, lost, and forgotten and went to extreme measures to make their situation better.”
The cast includes Keith White as John Wilkes Booth, Gene Lough as Charles Guiteau, Zach Love as Leon Czologsz, Shane Long as Giuseppe Zangara, Matt Burns as Samuel Byck, Lindsay Braverman as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Lauren Grof-Tisza as Sarah Jane Moore, Zach Mazouat as John Hinckley, Chris Cantalupo as The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald and Rich Colonna as The Proprietor.
Performances will run Friday and Saturdays at 8pm from October 7 through the 22 with a 1pm matinee on Saturday, October 15. Tickets and additional information can be found by visiting www.cdctheatre.org. Funding has been made possible in part by the NJ State Council on the Arts, Dept. of State, and a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through a grant administered by the Union County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs.