Assassins - I'm confused

[jayclay]

Posted: 11/4/11 at 11:39pm

I know Assassins won the 2004 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. I also remember that it was originally supposed to open in 2001 but was postponed. If it never opened in 2001, how can the 2004 production be a revival?
I've been trying to look up information on it and found this on Playbill.com "Roundabout had previously slated a 2001 production of the musical which was postponed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This staging marked the musical's Broadway premiere."
It's not listed on IMDB as ever having opened for an audience in 2001, yet that "staging" was it's premiere? So you can be in rehearsals and never open and you've still premiered? I'm confused...what technicality am I missing? Thanks.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 11/4/11 at 11:48pm

Assassins was done in 1990 Off-Broadway.

[willep]

Posted: 11/4/11 at 11:49pm

It is a case similar to The Normal Heart. It had an Off-Broadway run starting in 1990. And so when it opened on Broadway it was not a "new" show.

[MermansMan]

Posted: 11/4/11 at 11:51pm

My understanding is this- The show was not VASTLY changed from it's original 1990's Off-Broadway production, thus, the Tony Committee called it a Revival... It also happened the year before with Little Shop of Horrors... Though they never made an official Broadway Bow in their original runs, they were presented in generally the same structure. (Other than production values. Costumes, Set Design, Etc...)

[mattywhits]

Posted: 11/4/11 at 11:58pm

Yes, that's right. The Tony Committee decided to call it a "Revival" rather than a New Musical as it had a major NY production in the past, as they had done with Little Shop. :)

[jayclay]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:00am

Hmmm - I honestly didn't know that if something transferred basically intact from Off-Broadway that it wasn't considered a new Broadway show. I thought they were separate entities. So then why would something like Rock of Ages, which transferred in basically the same form, have been nominated as Best Musical and not Revival.

[jayclay]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:02am

Oh, and thanks for the responses...I learned something new...

[henryt]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:22am

Hmmm - I honestly didn't know that if something transferred basically intact from Off-Broadway that it wasn't considered a new Broadway show. I thought they were separate entities. So then why would something like Rock of Ages, which transferred in basically the same form, have been nominated as Best Musical and not Revival.

The difference is in the idea of a show vs a production. The show (the written material) for Assassins was not different enough for it to be considered new. However, the production (everything other than the written material) was different, thus making it a revival. However, with ROA (and most other transfers), it was literally a transfer of the off-broadway production, making it a new musical. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:34am

The time between productions is the difference. When shows transfer from off-Broadway, it's usually in a short time frame with much of the same creative team and cast. It's more like an out-of-town tryout than different productions.

In comparison, Little Shop had been around since the 1980s- both off-Broadway and the movie- and Assassins had an off-Broadway production in 1990 with a cast recording. The shows had been frozen, amateur rights were released and they were well-established in the theatre community before their official Broadway debuts decades later. As with revivals, entirely new teams took the established books and lyrics and used them to create a new production.

So if someone produced the licensed Wizard of Oz in a Broadway theatre for the first time, it would not be eligible for the Tony awards associated with new musicals- the estates of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg would not be eligible for Best Score, etc.

Kind of unfortunate in the case of Assassins. How awesome would the Best Score 2004 category have been with Sondheim thrown in?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:43am

He still wouldn't have deserved it. That award still needs to go to CAROLINE. That show is the rightful owner.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:54am

I don't think Assassins should have won, I just think 2004 was one of the most competitive years for musical scores, especially compared with the dreck in subsequent years where they have to scrounge for incidental music from plays just to fill the category.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 12:58am

It was an amazing (and also infuriating) year for musical theater. I hope we see it's likes again someday.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 1:42am

It was. I'm glad that was the year the Show Business documentary captured as well. It was kind of the highlight year of the last decade of American musical theatre.

[RainbowJude]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 2:51am

Jordan Catalano: He still wouldn't have deserved it. That award still needs to go to CAROLINE. That show is the rightful owner.

Sorry, but no. CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is a great show, but the score doesn't get quite to the place it needs to be. Just because it's more complex in conception than AVENUE Q doesn't mean it deserved the award. I also like the idea of the score, but in execution it doesn't achieve everything it could and should. If ASSASSINS had been thrown into the mix, the award should have gone to Stephen Sondheim - despite the error of judgment that is "Something Just Broke".

Updated On: 11/5/11 at 02:51 AM

[jayclay]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 7:54am

Thanks everyone - makes sense. I knew there had to be something I was missing.

[Sean2]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 8:11am

I'm with Jordan. It's a crime that 'Caroline, or Change' didn't win. One of the best musicals ever, in my opinion.

[ggersten]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 9:33am

>>The time between productions is the difference. When shows transfer from off-Broadway, it's usually in a short time frame with much of the same creative team and cast. It's more like an out-of-town tryout than different productions.<<


Except the 1986 production of House of Blue Leaves was "Best Play" even though it had been Off Broadway in 1971. So, I'm guessing they changed the rules as to what was a revival after that.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 10:06am

The rules for revival changed sometime in the last twenty or so years. Before it meant a new production of a previous Broadway show. Now it can be that or a new production of a very well-known show that has a significant role in theater history. Hence, well-known off-Broadway musicals like Little Shop and Assassins were revivals because they were so well known from their original not on Broadway runs.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 10:12am

"Sorry, but no."

Sorry again, but yes.

"CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is a great show, but the score doesn't get quite to the place it needs to be."

Where does it need to be? Because it actually gets to the level of perfection so I'm not quite sure where else it could go.

"Just because it's more complex in conception than AVENUE Q doesn't mean it deserved the award."

Actually, that's exactly what it means. The score was so rich and beautiful and meaningful and full of superlatives that I'm not even going to try to think of. It's problem is that it wasn't fully understood at the time or as "catchy" as AVE Q.


"I also like the idea of the score, but in execution it doesn't achieve everything it could and should. If ASSASSINS had been thrown into the mix, the award should have gone to Stephen Sondheim - despite the error of judgment that is "Something Just Broke". "

There are so many problems with that statement I don't even know where to begin. CAROLINE achieved something hardly any musical in the past quarter century had achieved. It overnight became (to a few people at the time) one of the best musicals ever written. In the 8 or so years since, the number of people who have discovered it and feel the same way has substantially grown and not in a "WICKED is the best musical evers! I can haz bootleg of it?" way, but in a mature understanding of the material.

Also, as wonderful as ASSASSINS is, most people (even the man himself) agree that the show now fully works because of "Something Just Broke". That's a shattering number in the show and without it, the musical just doesn't come together.
Updated On: 11/5/11 at 10:12 AM

[RainbowJude]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 2:01pm

Jordan Catalano wrote:Where does it need to be? Because it actually gets to the level of perfection so I'm not quite sure where else it could go.

The score of CAROLINE, OR CHANGE needs to get to the place where all of the brilliant ideas that are floating around in it form one brilliant synthesized whole.

Jordan Catalano wrote:Actually, that's exactly what it means.

No, it's the execution that matters not the conception.

Jordan Catalano wrote:The score was so rich and beautiful and meaningful and full of superlatives that I'm not even going to try to think of.

It's a pity the emotional response you're caught up in has paralyzed your critical facilities.

Jordan Catalano wrote:It's problem is that it wasn't fully understood at the time or as "catchy" as AVENUE Q.

Nope, it's problem is that the sum is less than the whole of its parts. Trying to reduce that to the idea that it's not as 'catchy' as another show really misses the point.

Jordan Catalano wrote:CAROLINE achieved something hardly any musical in the past quarter century had achieved. It overnight became (to a few people at the time) one of the best musicals ever written.

There are a good number of musicals in the past quarter century that 'a few people at the time' have considered to be one of the best musicals ever written. Which few people are right? CAROLINE, OR CHANGE can at best be called a flawed masterpiece, but to be one of the best musicals ever written it needs something it doesn't have: complete and synthesis in theme, narrative, lyric, music from conception all the way through to execution.

Jordan Catalano wrote:In the 8 or so years since, the number of people who have discovered it and feel the same way has substantially grown and not in a "WICKED is the best musical evers! I can haz bootleg of it?" way, but in a mature understanding of the material.

Sure, there have. I'm not disputing that there is much to appreciate about CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, but I am not going to pretend that it is flawless. Trying to throw WICKED into the equation at this point, as if it were comparable is ridiculous, especially considering that WICKED has, if anything, picked up more detractors with time.

Jordan Catalano wrote:Also, as wonderful as ASSASSINS is, most people (even the man himself) agree that the show now fully works because of "Something Just Broke". That's a shattering number in the show and without it, the musical just doesn't come together.

Really? Most people? You've surveyed that have you? Well, then so have I, and I'd say that most people agree that the show works less well with "Something Just Broke". Sondheim may think it's necessary, but it really subverts the entire purpose of the show. With it, the musical is not as uncompromisingly brilliant as it was without it. The inclusion panders to those who find ASSASSINS so controversial in the first place; those people who just don't get it and who need what's going on in the show spelled out for them within an inch of its life. Sondheim has differentiated between things that make dramatic sense and things that make theatrical sense. The only sense that "Something Just Broke" makes is commercial. I can live with that if it makes ASSASSINS more marketable, but that doesn't mean I can't see it for what it is.

[Jon]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 2:53pm

The revival rule was changed after a 100-year old Russian play was nominated for Best New Play, because it had never been done on Broadway.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 4:28pm

Jon is correct. The play is Fortune's Fool, written in 1848 but first produced on Broadway in 2002. It was nominated for Best Play (lost to The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?) and won Tonys for Best Actor and Best Featured Actor (Alan Bates and Frank Langella, respectively). After that year, they changed the rules of eligibility for Revival of a Play/Musical to this:

A play or musical that is determined by the Tony Awards Administration Committee (in its sole discretion) to be a "classic" or in the historical or popular repertoire shall not be eligible for an Award in the Best Play or Best Musical category but may be eligible in the appropriate Best Revival category, if any, provided it meets all other eligibility requirements set forth in these Rules.

This is why Assassins, Little Shop of Horrors, Oleanna, Steel Magnolias, Twelve Angry Men, Sight Unseen, Reckless, Talk Radio, Top Girls, Driving Miss Daisy, etc. were eligible for Best Revival even though they had their Broadway premieres within the last nine years.

[3bluenight]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 7:02pm

in response to the caroline conversation i just wanted to say that i tend to agree that the show has it's flaws. but i don't think it's the score. i think the score really does find its apotheosis in Lot's Wife. I think the musical themes are all building to that number.
i think it's interesting that they chose to write a sung through musical in the tradition of the British mega -musicals.
without a book that includes more dialogue, i wonder if the african american/jewish american themes are explored enough and resolved in a way that is germane to the piece.

just some thoughts that were inspired by the conversation

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 8:18pm

I think Caroline's score absolutely gets where it needs tyo be, though I have a hard time deciding between whether it or Assassins should have won.

That said, I'm someone who (at least on record) much much prefers the Off Broadway Assassins to the Broadway production, and I firmly feel Something Just Broke ruins the focus and some of the power of the play. I'd argue your point Jordan that most fans feel it really makes the show work--in my experience more and more people seem to think it was a mistake to add it--even Sondheim seems very ambivalent on the decision now (it'll beinteresting to read what he writes on it when his new book comes out in a few weeks).

As for these rules--my problem is:

"A play or musical that is determined by the Tony Awards Administration Committee (in its sole discretion) to be a "classic" or in the historical or popular repertoire shall not be eligible for an Award in the Best Play or Best Musical category but may be eligible in the appropriate Best Revival category, if any, provided it meets all other eligibility requirements set forth in these Rules. "

Is still pretty open to interpretation, isn't it? Weird.

[mattywhits]

Posted: 11/5/11 at 8:33pm

RE: Something Just Broke, I've always felt that the Assassins themselves made President Kennedy's death something completely different and special from the other deaths in the show...they literally beg Oswald (in more than one language!) to commit that crime on behalf of all of them so that they can be "revived", "given meaning", "reborn", "a force of history", etc. and it's the only time they truly consider what their actions will directly cause: "you can close the NY Stock Exchange", "grief beyond imagining"...and Something Just Broke just validates the entire scene beforehand. Seeing the Assassins come out for a reprise of "Everybody's Got the Right" without directly confronting the damage they did seems to make the finale into just one more "this is why I did it", whereas with "Something Just Broke" it can be something way more powerful. I refuse to believe it's just to make the show more marketable.