Bloody Ambitions

Bloody Ambitions

From the 42nd Street chorus girl who needs to “come back a star” to the lion cub who becomes King of the Jungle, the Broadway musical has always embraced the American aspiration to fame and fortune. Which makes Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins so diabolically brilliant. With musical portraits of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and other successful and unsuccessful presidential assassins, Sondheim knits American Dream and Tragedy into a potent package and another potentially winning musical. Assassins (Sept. 4-Oct. 7). Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. 108 E. Wells St., 414-224-9490, milwaukeerep.com.

From the 42nd Street chorus girl who needs to “come back a star” to the lion cub who becomes King of the Jungle, the Broadway musical has always embraced the American aspiration to fame and fortune. Which makes Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins so diabolically brilliant. With musical portraits of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and other successful and unsuccessful presidential assassins, Sondheim knits American Dream and Tragedy into a potent package and another potentially winning musical.

Assassins (Sept. 4-Oct. 7). Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. 108 E. Wells St., 414-224-9490, milwaukeerep.com.

Paul Kosidowski is a freelance writer and critic who contributes regularly to Milwaukee Magazine, WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio and national arts magazines. He writes weekly reviews and previews for the Culture Club column. He was literary director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater from 1999-2006. In 2007, he was a fellow with the NEA Theater and Musical Theater Criticism Institute at the University of Southern California. His writing has also appeared in American Theatre magazine, Backstage, The Boston Globe, Theatre Topics, and Isthmus (Madison, Wis.). He has taught theater history, arts criticism and magazine writing at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.