In "Assassins," composer Stephen Sondheim's controversial show about the people who have tried to kill U.S. Presidents, Garrison plays Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, the Manson acolyte convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975.

While Garrison's cast mates turned to biographies, documentaries or the Internet to gather information on the likes of John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, Garrison tried writing a letter to Fromme, who is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.

To Garrison's surprise, Fromme wrote back.

"I really wanted to come right to the source and be as accurate [in the role] as I possibly could," says Garrison.

She found Fromme's prison address on a Web site.

"I wrote her a letter saying, 'I'm doing this Broadway show, and my intention is to be totally true to you. I know there will be discrepancies in how you feel and what the character does and says,'" says Garrison.

"I didn't want to be disrespectful," she adds.

Fromme "is a criminal, technically, and obviously she's associated with some horrible things in America's past. But I just couldn't resist."

A few weeks later, Garrison received a neatly written card in the mail. It was signed simply, "Lynette."

"It said, 'The answers are coming - your character is probably already fashioned, but I believe your intentions are true and I just want you to know you did the right thing by asking,'" says Garrison.

Fromme, now 55, was never charged in the infamous 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles that were committed by Manson's followers.

Known as "Squeaky" for her mousy voice and appearance, Fromme was convicted of attempted assassination when she pointed an unloaded gun at then-President Ford in a California park in 1975.

Garrison says she contacted Fromme because she had "a bunch of little questions I couldn't find in my research - like, 'Did you guys wear underwear?'

"That was something very important to me," says Garrison, laughing.

"But I also had some bigger questions, like: 'If the tenet of this group was nonviolence and peace and love, why the mass slaying? Could you explain that to me?'

"Ironically, she never answered [the question]."

Fromme has written four letters to Garrison, who says her new pen pal has opened up a little more with each missive and begun offering sometimes "rambling" thoughts about Manson and the murders.

Sitting in her "Assassins" dressing room, Garrison reads aloud from the most recent one: "'The murders as I saw them…were the result of their time and a dozen of other factors. One thing I know and maintain is that they had nothing to do with money, drugs or power.'"

Another portion of the letter has Fromme displaying her undying devotion to Manson: "Manson cared more passionately for Earth than anyone I've ever known."

Garrison says there was little in the letters she used for the role - other than the fact the Manson girls did indeed not wear undies.

"And now I don't either in the show," she says, laughing.

Yet for Garrison, the letters did result in putting a human face on a woman who has been demonized.

"Squeaky is very sweet and very articulate and very, very bright, and it's just so weird that's coming through in the letters," says Garrison.

"It sounds like I'm sympathetic to what happened. But she's not just this mythological, two-dimensional figure that we think of.

"She's a person. She's a woman. It's been very interesting in that way."

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