Assassins - I'm confused

Assassins was done in 1990 Off-Broadway.

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...)

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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.

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.

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

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

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".

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

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

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 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.

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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.

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.