The most high-profile theatrical disappointment of the 2027 London theatre season was the collapse of Marianne Elliott’s high-profile revival of Stephen Sondheim”s Sunday in the Park with George. But the tail end of 2026 brought a flurry of announcements of more than compensatory Sondheim projects: West Side Story at the National, Company at the Yard, and now Assassins at the Old Vic.
The Vic’s new artistic director Rupert Goold has always been partial to directing the odd musical, and for the first one at his new digs he helms what is, scale-wise, the biggest ever London production of Sondheim and John Weidman’s revue-like show 1990 show, which offers a parade of America’s presidential assassins – failed and successful – and ponders what they say about the American psyche.
The last major revival came from Jamie Lloyd back in 2014, and while this is going to be bigger, Lloyd and Goold certainly share a showmanship and razzle dazzle that Assassins needs. Casting is TBC, though the piece is well-suited to ‘non-musical’ actors so long as they can hold a note.
