After an extensive search Hayes Theatre Co have tracked down the remaining cast and creative team for their September – October production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Tony Award-winning musical, Assassins.
Joining the previously announced David Campbell (Dream Lover), Connor Crawford (The Sound of Music, City of Angels), Martin Crewes (Dream Lover, Sweet Charity) and Hannah Fredericksen (Dream Lover, Heathers), a stellar cast has been assembled including Laura Bunting (Calamity Jane, Side Show, RENT) Kate Cole (Ladies in Black, Sweet Charity), Bobby Fox (Ladies in Black, High Society, Blood Brothers), Jason Kos (Cabaret, Miracle City), Rob McDougall (Les Misérables), and Justin Smith (The Detective’s Handbook, Billy Elliott). Making his professional debut in the role of The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald will be Maxwell Simon.
A multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical tour-de-force, Assassins combines Sondheim’s signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music with a panoramic story of the 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. Bold, original, disturbing and alarmingly funny, Assassins is perhaps the most controversial musical ever written.
In a fairground shooting gallery a group of misfits gather. Each has a problem they need to solve and each has discovered the answer – they must shoot the President of the United States!
From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, we learn of the varied and unusual ways that each has committed (or attempted to commit) the ultimate crime; their motivations and their desire to be recognised for their actions in a world where they are largely dismissed and ignored. Assassins is a chilling and timely reminder that those in power ignore the poor and disenfranchised to their peril.
“Assassins is about a group of people with a diverse set of dreams and one vicious way to achieve them – to assassinate the President of the United States of America,” said director Dean Bryant. “What makes a citizen take up a gun and take out the most powerful man in their country?”
“A documentary, black comedy, revue and tour through a hundred years of popular music, Assassins couldn’t be more right for Australia now; a time when our newsfeeds are so flooded with US politics that we know more about their leaders than our own.”
Andrew Hallsworth and Andrew Worboys (Sweet Charity and Little Shop of Horrors) will reunite with Director Dean Bryant as Choreographer and Musical Director respectively. Steven Kreamer (Little Shop of Horrors, Rent) will be the Associate Musical Director. Alicia Clements (After Dinner, Ivanov) will be designing the sets and costumes, and Ross Graham (Little Shop of Horrors, Sweet Charity) will be returning from New York to design the lighting. Jack Daniel Woods (Calamity Jane, Rent) will be the Production Manager.
Assassins
Hayes Theatre Co. 19 Greenknowe Avenue, Potts Point
Season: 15 September – 14 October 2017
Information and Bookings: www.hayestheatre.com.au
Image: David Campbell stars as John Wilkes Booth in Assassins – photo by Johnny Diaz Nicolaidis / artwork by Jeff van de Zandt