Presidential
politics can be murderous, as shown in Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins."
Starting with James Wilkes Booth, America’s first assassin of a sitting
president, this chamber musical digs up both the infamous and the
forgotten, men and women so enraged by being left out of the American
dream that they turned to murder to solve their problems. Rich Gray
plays Charles Guiteau in this latest co-production of ACT-A Contemporary
Theatre and the 5th Avenue Theatre.
When he got the casting call, Gray’s first act was finding out more about Guiteau, who shot and killed President James Garfield in 1881. “I didn’t know anything about Guiteau but the minute that I was cast, I became obsessed with him. Actually all the actors felt the same,” he said. “We all did tons of research on our characters to learn the background” of John Wilkes Booth (played by Louis Hobson), Samuel Byck (Matt Wolfe), Leon Czolgosz (Brandon O’Neill), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Laura Griffi…
When he got the casting call, Gray’s first act was finding out more about Guiteau, who shot and killed President James Garfield in 1881. “I didn’t know anything about Guiteau but the minute that I was cast, I became obsessed with him. Actually all the actors felt the same,” he said. “We all did tons of research on our characters to learn the background” of John Wilkes Booth (played by Louis Hobson), Samuel Byck (Matt Wolfe), Leon Czolgosz (Brandon O’Neill), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Laura Griffi…