BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID;X-RICAL-TZSOURCE=TZINFO:-//com.denhaven2/NONSGML ri_cal gem//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN VERSION:2.0 BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:In an atmosphere where musicals like The Sound of Music and S eussical are the normal fare\, only the nerviest community theaters tack le the harrowing\, heart-breaking and blackly comic Stephen Sondheim mas terpiece Assassins. But\, on top of that\, isn&rsquo\;t opening Assassin s at the end of Fourth of July week what could optimistically be describ ed as &ldquo\;pushing your luck&rdquo\;?\nGeneva Underground Playhouse d irector Craig Gustafson of Lombard shrugs it off. &ldquo\;Anybody who wi ll be offended by this show won&rsquo\;t see it no matter when we do it. The very idea of musicalizing the stories of people who have either ass assinated or attempted to assassinate American presidents just strikes s ome people as Being Wrong. So let&rsquo\;s do it at a time when it&rsquo \;s appropriate to think about what it means to be an American.&rdquo\;\ nPlayed as a ghoulish vaudeville show\, Assassins depicts the killers of Abraham Lincoln (John Wilkes Booth)\, James Garfield (Charles Guiteau)\ , William McKinley (Leon Czolgosz) and John F. Kennedy (Lee Harvey Oswal d)\, as well as the attempted-murderers of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Guisep pe Zangara)\, Richard Nixon (Sam Byck)\, Gerald Ford (Sara Jane Moore &a mp\; Lynette &ldquo\;Squeaky&rdquo\; Fromme) and Ronald Reagan (John Hin ckley). &ldquo\;People hear &lsquo\;musical&rsquo\; and think that the a ssassins will be singing a cheery Disney-style opening number or high-ki cking up and down the gallows\, and&hellip\; well\, all right\, yes. The y do that\,&rdquo\; says Gustafson. &ldquo\;But remember shows like Swee ney Todd or West Side Story. &lsquo\;Musical&rsquo\; doesn&rsquo\;t auto matically mean &lsquo\;sweetness and light&rsquo\;. This show has Sondhe im&rsquo\;s greatest\, most powerful and diversified score. It spans the range of American music styles from the 1860s to the present.&rdquo\;\n Songs range from a post-Civil War cakewalk to a folk ballad to a Carpent ers style 1970s ballad. &ldquo\;The ballad is a love duet sung by John H inckley and Squeaky Fromme\; but they&rsquo\;re not singing to each othe r. He&rsquo\;s singing to Jodie Foster and she&rsquo\;s singing to Charl es Manson. It&rsquo\;s beautiful\, heartfelt and creepy as hell.&rdquo\; There is also an impassioned argument against assassination\, sung by t he Balladeer\, who pops up throughout the show to sing ironic folk songs about the killers. This balances things like The Gun Song\, where the a ssassins sing a love song about their guns &ndash\; in \; barbershop harmony.\nThe cast includes Susan Able Barry (Carol Stream)\, Garrett A rd (Warrenville)\, Carrie L. Dabelow (Palatine)\, Patrick Daly (Napervil le)\, Tairen M. Foster (Aurora)\, Shane Frantz (Bolingbrook)\, Zach Gibs on (Lisle)\, Meredith Higgins (Chicago)\, Rod Kelly (Lombard)\, Aimee Ke nnedy (Aurora)\, Harold LeBoyer (Rolling Meadows)\, Sean Ogren (Villa Pa rk)\, Jaime Sandoval (Oak Park)\, Dean Sasman (Buffalo Grove) and Lars T impa (Wood Dale). \; Musical Director is Kathleen Dooley (Aurora).&n bsp\; Produced by Elaine G. Castro (Bolingbrook).\n&ldquo\;The show does not glorify assassination\,&rdquo\; claims Gustafson. &ldquo\;It examin es the subject. Librettist John Weidman desperately wants to know why th ese horrible things continually happen in America. Are these people all insane? As depicted in the show\, yeah\, some of them are clearly nuts. Others believe passionately that they are doing the right thing &ndash\; even though they couldn&rsquo\;t be more wrong. I won&rsquo\;t give it away\, but there&rsquo\;s a section sung by John Wilkes Booth where he e loquently and beautifully states his case for shooting Lincoln. And you& rsquo\;re getting sucked in by his passion\, thinking\, &ldquo\;Well\, I could certainly understand why he did it&hellip\;&rdquo\;\, then he scr eams something so repulsive that you realize that you almost got sucked in by one of the worst monsters in history. And that&rsquo\;s the point. Evil isn&rsquo\;t always Darth Vader. It can be persuasive\, beautiful\ , seductive &ndash\; so we have to listen very carefully and use our bra ins rather than just our hearts.&rdquo\;\nThe show runs July 6-22 at Gen eva Underground Playhouse\, 524 W. State Street\, Geneva\, Illinois\, 60 134 (southeast corner of Sixth and State). \; Fridays andSaturdays a t 8:00\, Sundays at 3:00. \; Call (630) 677-1725 for reservations an d information\, or purchase tickets online at www.GUPTheatre.org. \; It is rated &ldquo\;R&rdquo\; for adult language and situations. \; Also\, guns will be fired onstage.\nAssassins is a horrifying\, funny a nd shattering musical\, available only in Geneva just after the Fourth o f July. The fireworks are just beginning. URL:http://downersgrove.patch.com/events/assassins-at-geneva-underground- playhouse SUMMARY:"\;Assassins"\; at Geneva Underground Playhouse LOCATION:524 W State St\, Geneva\, IL 60134: 524 W State St\, Geneva\, IL END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR