{"id":25313,"date":"2019-11-29T15:36:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T20:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25313"},"modified":"2019-11-29T15:36:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T20:36:50","slug":"theatre-aurora-presents-assassins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-aurora-presents-assassins\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora presents: Assassins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Review by Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora continues this season\u2019s\ntheme of murder and mayhem with the Tony award winning \u201cAssassins\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the title makes it sound like a\nmystery thriller, it\u2019s actually a musical, with a book by John Weidman, and music\nand lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story starts in a creepy carnival, with\nan equally mysterious Proprietor, who introduces the various men and women who\nhave attempted, successfully or not, to assassinate American presidents, from\nLincoln to Reagan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Proprietor as our guide, the\nplot examines each assassination attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What were the conditions in the country\nat the time? What motivated the shooters? How did their actions inspire those\nwho followed? These and other questions are explored through the story and\nsongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is more a philosophical play than a\nphysical one. For example, while the mindset of the characters is heavily\nexplored, sometimes through the interaction of characters from different time\nperiods, none of the assassination attempts are portrayed on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music has been chosen to reflect\neach time period, which helps as the events in the play do not take place in\nchronological order.  The song lyrics are\nentertaining, and in some cases thought-provoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although some of the characters are\nlittle-known to Canadians, an understanding of American history is not\nrequired, as enough information is provided on stage to identify each\ncharacter.  For those who may want to\nbrush up a bit beforehand, the show\u2019s program has brief bios of each assassin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play is well-paced and the lack of\nintermission helps keep things moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set is very basic, which makes sense\nas so many different scenes and time periods are portrayed. This also helps to\nfocus attention on the actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the cast, it is a large one. Even\nthen, many of the performers appear as more than one character, such as a\nkiller in one scene and a president in another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cast includes Jaime Brown as\nLynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Sergio Calderon as John Wilkes Booth, David\nCardinal as Balladeer\/Proprietor, Trevor Cartlidge as Charles Guiteau,\nEd Ho as Leon Czolgosz, Kerry Hobbs as Emma Goldman, Ivan Hutomo as\nLee Harvey Oswald, Stefan Porfirio as Guiseppe Zangara, Mitchell\nRozen as John Hinkley Jr., Sandra Salvatore-Spaventa as Sara Jane\nMoore, and Glen Warren as Samuel Byck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the acting and singing\nthroughout is very strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although an unusual concept, and\npotentially not for everyone, this play works well in its exploration of the\nchanging times in America, and what makes a certain type of people tick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evening performances of \u201cAssassins\u201d\ncontinue at Theatre Aurora, 150 Henderson Drive, November 28, 29 and 30, and\nDecember 5, 6 & 7, with a matinee on December 1.  Tickets are available through the box office\nat 905-727-3669.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Review by Scott Johnston Theatre Aurora continues this season\u2019s theme of murder and mayhem with the Tony award winning \u201cAssassins\u201d. Although the title makes it sound like a mystery thriller, it\u2019s actually a musical, with a book by John Weidman, and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The story starts in a creepy carnival, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-28-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Ah","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 10:27:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}