New York Post:
"In the battle for Tony Awards, "Assassins" is poised to murder its rivals. [The reviews] are just about the best any musical has received this season.With this kind of momentum behind it, "Assassins" will surely pick up plenty of Tony nominations next month."

Washington Post:
" Any doubt as to whether "Assassins" can be mentioned in the same breath as "Sweeney Todd" or "Follies" should now be put to rest. Joe Mantello's spectacular production for the Roundabout Theatre Company reveals it at long last to be one of Stephen Sondheim's most original, disturbing and exquisitely scored shows. ...It .. also trains a blazing follow-spot on a throng of actors -- most notably Michael Cerveris, Neil Patrick Harris, Marc Kudisch, Denis O'Hare, Mario Cantone and Becky Ann Baker -- whose Broadway musical careers will surely pick up additional steam with their contributions to this most stylish and provocative musical of the season."

New York Times:
"What's more, "Assassins" has also acquired a new point of connection with contemporary culture... Americans will happily humiliate themselves and torment others to guarantee a spot on Jerry Springer or "Survivor." And the same glazed, hungry look that often beams from participants on such shows can be glimpsed in the eyes of the performers here. They range from the epochally famous, like Booth (richly played by Michael Cerveris), to the nearly forgotten, like Charles Guiteau (Denis O'Hare)."

Variety:
"Joe Mantello's flawless production makes your skin crawl even as it seduces you -- and should redeem a prime place for this disquieting musical in the canon of the American theater's reigning master of the form.

Sun Sentinel:
"Among the culprits, only Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth comes across with a sense of mission above and beyond whatever inconvenience passes for disenfranchisement. Michael Cerveris gives a swashbuckling performance in the best role available, leaping the gaps in dramatic continuity where the production's abundance of style cannot."

Hartford Courant:
""Sic semper tyrranus," or "Thus Always With Tyrants," cried the prototype of the American assassin, the actor John Wilkes Booth, after shooting Abraham Lincoln. As acted by Michael Cerveris, the former "Tommy" now transformed into a goateed matinee idol in elegant costumes by Jess Goldstein, Booth belongs at the pinnacle of the pantheon in this Satanic vaudeville."

Newsday:
"The terrific cast is in synch with Mantello's concept and the irony of a show that has killers sing, over and over, the American mantra, "Everybody's got the right to their dreams." ..Michael Cerveris gives Booth the preening zealousness of an actor who believes Lincoln put "blood on the clover" but just might be upset about bad reviews."

NY1:
"Director Joe Mantello, clearly inspired by this vision of warped Americana has assembled a most excellent ensemble. Michael Cerveris' playing John Wilkes Booth as a disturbed southerner is a study of civilized madness. "

Broadway World:
"Michael Cerveris is almost unrecognizable as John Wilkes Booth, giving a much less gentlemanly performance than Victor Garber did in 1991. His rage and roughness are never far beneath the calm demeanor he tries to affect, and violence seems to drip from his teeth when he speaks."
'Assassins' is an emotionally devastating theatrical experience, forcing us to look upon the monsters of our history books and see them as human beings. By the show’s end, we have journeyed with these characters and watched them commit (or try to commit) terrible crimes, but also heard of their own "muffled dreams," and their own quests for happiness. That might be the scariest aspect of the show: while most people would certainly not go to the extremes the assassins do, we all have muffled dreams. We all, ultimately, want to be happy. Looking at these people who resorted to murder to solve their personal problems, perhaps we might see a little bit of ourselves looking back.

New York Daily News:
"The Roundabout's stunning revival, directed by Joe Mantello, is far more elaborate than the 1991 original workshop production at the then-tiny Playwrights Horizons Theater. Robert Brill's set, which fills the huge Studio 54 stage, conveys both a bare-bones carnival and, at one point, the scaffold for the hanging. The lighting makes the set a macabre, tawdry character in the grisly proceedings....The cast is spectacular, starting with the commanding Marc Kudisch as the proprietor and the eerily suave Michael Cerveris as Booth. James Barbour, who plays William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, turns a disquieting song about guns into a powerful aria."


*************************************


Reviews of 1991 Off-Broadway production

Reviews of London Production