anditdidntmeananickle

[anditdidntmeananickle]

Okay here’s my experience at a college assassins production

John Wilkes booth messed up his FIRST SPEAKING LINE

Guiteau tried too hard

proprietor was amazing. A tiny girl with drag king makeup who slunk around with a big evil gremlin smile. She came up to the balladeer’s shoulder

moore and squeaky were fantastic

Zangara and czolgosz were phenomenal

Hinckley sounded like he was in an echoey room, no one else did ;-;

Booth said “slave lover”

they stole the balladeer costume and Oswald transformation from 2021 revival

before the show the assassins minus booth were milling about the crowd in character. Felt like I was in the carnival

[anditdidntmeananickle]

>video claiming to be essay/history on a topic

>ask them if its analysis or summary

>they dont understand

>pull out detailed chart explaining what's analyzing the ideas and motives behind a text and what is just presenting information without thinking about it

>"it's a good video, ma'am"

>watch it

>summary

[anditdidntmeananickle]

I feel absolute rage when i call An Office and have to sit through a 5 minute recording telling me I can just use their website thanks!!! I can’t! Believe it or not I’m a child of the internet age who went on your website and it was shit!! Get me a human person!!!!

[anditdidntmeananickle]

Something about the Balladeer singing that line is fucking me up so bad

Obviously during Ballad of Czolgosz, he's singing as Czolgosz, but that is EXACTLY what happens to the Balladeer during the final song.

The idea wasn't mine alone but mine.

The idea wasn't mine alone, but mine- and that's the sign!

[anditdidntmeananickle]

the way I rembered that this was the day John F Kennedy was assisnted not because I temper that fact from history but because I listened to November 22,1963 and got reminded of it

[anditdidntmeananickle]

after reading five billion articles about assassins i think it's really interesting how almost all of them talk about reactions to lee harvey oswald. hearing about audience members being visibly uncomfortable and even walking out, even moreso when the show first came out and it was more common for audience members to have been alive when the actual event happened. that being said i'd like to shout out the production where some lady laughs for a solid 10 seconds when jfk dies

[anditdidntmeananickle]

I have SO many fucking thoughts about it

i desperately want to write the assassins musical character study that's been bouncing around in my brain for a solid six months but that would mean 1. actually writing and 2. writing fucking. assassins fanfiction

[anditdidntmeananickle]

on this episode of bee listens to 2014 london assassins: in the video clip of fromme and moore's scene you can see what might possibly be the funniest background interaction ever, in which guiteau goes up to booth and shakes his hand with an enthusiasm bordering on violence for a solid thirty seconds while booth just stands there looking progressively more bewildered

[anditdidntmeananickle]

on this episode of bee listens to 2014 london assassins: in the video clip of fromme and moore's scene you can see what might possibly be the funniest background interaction ever, in which guiteau goes up to booth and shakes his hand with an enthusiasm bordering on violence for a solid thirty seconds while booth just stands there looking progressively more bewildered

[anditdidntmeananickle]

i always giggle at the part after byck's first monologue where america starts playing. like yeah ok i guess this is west side story now

[anditdidntmeananickle]

rating various doublecastings in assassins 👍

balladeer/lee harvey oswald: THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND!!! no one's doing it like them... i think it's really important to the show because of the running theme that anyone could end up like the assassins, and the balladeer being a representation of the audience getting turned into an assassin is really powerful imagery. i LOVE the way the 2021 off broadway revival stages the costume change because instead of the assassins forcing the balladeer into it it feels more like the balladeer has been pushed to the point where he does it willingly. and im so normal about that!!! i looove the broadway revival's staging of the assassins surrounding the balladeer to reveal him as lee harvey oswald because it feels a lot more surprising/shocking . i also saw a production that had the assassins force the balladeer to change at gunpoint, which was interesting. 1000/10 (the only drawback to this is the one production i found that had a female lee harvey oswald which. was a choice.)

proprietor/john wilkes booth: i'm ok with it! i think my main problem with this is that the proprietor to me represents the disillusionment with america turning into violent passion against it, so having him also be a person feels weird to me. also i think it gives too much power to booth, and i think it's important to show that like everyone else, john wilkes booth was never really that special. also i like it when the proprietor is influencing other scenes and if he's doublecast with booth he's only really in the opening number. it doesn't really affect the show on a surface level though. 5/10

bystander #3 or #5/emma goldman: i don't really have that many thoughts on it, low score because i don't think it detracts from the show but it doesn't really add to it either. i prefer them played by separate actresses but like 100% of the time they're doublecast because the ensemble isn't big enough. also when they're played by the same actor they have to costume change during what does a man do, and i think it's a little distracting for what's meant to be a powerful rally. 2/10

ensemble/the assassins: not a fan, i think it detracts from the assassins feeling like outcasts from what the ensemble represents as society. i guess it could represent the assassins being people/blurring the lines between us vs them?? i think the balladeer/lee harvey oswald doublecast is a more effective way to do that. i dunno, i think it's too distracting to be worth it but also i really like some productions that do this so it doesn't really matter that much. 1/10

bystander/lee harvey oswald: OK i'm going to do something unheard of and talk about the watermill theatre production. i think this doublecasting is really effective in a specific context, like how watermill theatre sets it up. for some background they don't have an orchestra, so all the instruments are played by the assassins and the ensemble. one side effect of this is that the ensemble is on stage a LOT more than they normally are, and for the most part they don't have costume changes, so each ensemble member is very recognizable and you feel like you know them. because of this, when one of the ensemble members is turned into lee harvey oswald, it has the same affect as double casting the balladeer and oswald. it feels like a representation of the audience is being turned into an assassin, while avoiding the ramifications of the balladeer (who is female in this) being oswald. the only negative drawback is that this ensemble member wears a high school letterman jacket for most of the show so it makes oswald feel a lot younger. this is something most productions do but booth feels much older then oswald, who in real life was a year older than him. oswald feels like a kid being manipulated by an older person who knows what they're doing, but i think it's important to show that he's also a grown man who fully knew what he was doing when he chose to shoot jfk. anyways in any other production where the ensemble isn't on stage a lot it doesn't have the same affect, oswald feels like an entirely new person who you have no introduction to, because most people won't recognize him as one of the actors in the ensemble. 10/10 for watermill, 1/10 for everyone else

balladeer/the proprietor: so i've only seen one production that does this and i have a lot of mixed feelings on it. for context this is a college production that has the entire ensemble play both the proprietor and the balladeer. i think this gets rid of the duality between the proprietor and the balladeer, especially in another national anthem when they're supposed to be fighting but instead the same people are singing both the proprietor and the balladeer's lines. i think the only good thing about this is that the proprietor and the balladeer feel a lot more like forced of nature/ideas rather than individuals. 3/10

[anditdidntmeananickle]

love being the only one interested in things like hey bbg do you want to hear about that time the robert morris university colonial theatre controversially changed the ending of their 2007 production of assassins the musical

[anditdidntmeananickle]

A series of miscommunications and really unclear call sheets for conflicting set-ups has led to me and the other ASM on this show thinking that this call wasn't intended for us because our SM told us that we'd recieve a 'seperate call' when we asked if this was intended for us.

So now I'm on a train back home after spending the weekend with my family.

I thought I would be leaving tomorrow morning.

I had to skip family roast.

I had five minutes to pack.

I am LIVID.

[anditdidntmeananickle]

overwhelmed with the urge to shoot the president (my tummy hurts)

[anditdidntmeananickle]

Threats made against our director:

ASM: What if he falls over and cuts open the back of his leg and bleeds out?

DSM: Good.

[anditdidntmeananickle]

i love comparing audience reactions from bootlegs of assassins bc the more recent the production the more the audiences seem to really Get It. in 1991 they're very hesitant to laugh at the jokes at first; you can kind of sense the discomfort in some scenes even after they've warmed up to the tone a bit. in 2004 they're more comfortable and a bit more enthusiastic but it doesn't seem to click. then you get to the 2017 encores staged concert and the 2021 revival and it's like some switch has flipped and it resonates, it lands, it hits home. the crowd roars at every joke because it's ten times more cathartic. the themes are painfully familiar now: the disillusionment with our political system, the constant cycle of gun violence, the sense that nobody listens, the rise of violent political radicalism - sondheim was so ahead of his time it's not even funny.

[anditdidntmeananickle]

Happy third anniversary to Tumblr's emergency announcement system