Michael McKelvey’s Research Into Origin Story Leads to CMU Roots
By SHARON EBERSON
Michael McKelvey landed on Assassins as his first local musical production in large part because of its roots here. When the show opens at the Greer Cabaret on Thursday, August 20, 2026, the credits will indicated music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, and based on an idea by Charles Gilbert Jr., a Carnegie Mellon alumnus who wrote a musical revue titled: Assassins.
According to the Sondheim Society, Gilbert’s two-act,15–song version was produced by Theatre Express in Pittsburgh in January 1979. Producer/director Stuart Ostrow mentioned the show to Sondheim, “who was haunted by the idea.” When Weidman brought his own idea for a show about presidential assassins to Sondheim, “the composer’s interest was rekindled. … Intrigued by the theatrical potential of turning a gallery of misfits into a vaudeville of American violence, he and Weidman — with Gilbert’s blessing — reshaped the premise into a full-length piece.”
Director McKelvey is currently assistant professor of Music Theatre & Voice at CMU. This is his second turn in Pittsburgh, having previously supervised the voice program for COPA at Point Park University as an Associate Professor of Musical Theatre. While at Point Park, he was still producing musicals in other cities, via his Doctuh Mistuh Productions.
He intended to produce shows for Pittsburgh audiences, “but it just never happened, because I was busy at the university,” he recalled. “I worked with [Pittsburgh Musical Theater] some, and then I got hired at CMU, to come back to Pittsburgh.”
Assassins was a natural first choice, as McKelvey had interviewed Gilbert and Weidman for a book he is writing about 10 off-Broadway musicals that have had an impact apart from Broadway. Assassins, although it eventually made it there, is one of them.
“A lot of my academic research is on shows that may appear off-Broadway, maybe get one regional production, and that’s it, because they don’t have name recognition. What happens to those shows? So that’s what we’ve always kind of specialized in,” McKelvey said.
Although he wanted his first Pittsburgh show to be one that had rarely been produced here (Assassins was at Riverfront Theatre in 2023), McKelvey also felt the musical would resonate during the 250th birthday of the United States, as well as in the current political climate.
“We thought the show raised a lot of questions about the American dream, and people who feel disenfranchised,” he said.
Through his Doctuh Mistuh Productions, McKelvey began the process by forming Rogue Theatre Artists of Pittsburgh (RAT Pitt), “a collective founded to offer professional opportunities to local theater artists, and to introduce Pittsburgh audiences to overlooked productions from off-Broadway and regional theaters.”
He had no trouble finding local theater artists jumping at the chance to appear in Assassins — he said more than 100 performers came to auditions.
“We received some video submissions, too, and we actually received a lot of interest from people outside of town, because we were hiring a couple of Equity contracts,” McKelvey said.
Allan Snyder, who will play John Wilkes Booth, called it a “dream role” in a social media post. McKelvey’s longtime friend J. Alex Noble appears as Sam Byck, who plotted against Richard Nixon. Zanny Laird will portray Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford, and Laird’s Dear Evan Hansen costar for PMT, Anthony Marino, will play Giuseppe Zangara, whose attempt to kill president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt missed, but fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anthony Cermak.
“Everyone’s local,” McKelvey said of his cast. “I knew Anthony Marino when he was just a tiny kid, because I did Sweeney Todd out in Greensburg with his dad. I’d seen Allan in Annie at PMT, and I knew Zanny, because I worked with her husband, Lucas [Fedele].”
As the Balladeer and one significant other, Asher Alcantara is a rising junior in CMU’s Music Theater program. The rest of the cast comprises Griffin Frye, Connor Bahr, Corwin Stoddard, Mae Ryness, Allante Walker, Arkida Saiwai, Michaela Isenberg and Marshall Benton, a rising Point Park senior who, McKelvey noted, was the lead in a production of Urinetown.
During his interview with Weidman, McKelvey asked why he and Sondheim felt it wasn’t successful when it first appeared at the off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons, in December 1990. When Assassins made it to Broadway 14 years later, it won five Tony Awards, including best revival, direction and best featured actor for Michael Cerveris, as Booth.
“I don’t think the country was ready for it, and, like they say with Urinetown, it has a bad title,” Weidman told him. The first incarnation of Assassins also was met with accusations of “glorifying the people who committed these heinous acts,” and critics asking, “Why are you giving them space?”
The musical had its champions as well. “They knew it wasn’t just about shock value. They understood the piece,” McKelvey said.
Assassins gained a following when it was revived in London, with Sam Mendes directing, and the creative team made some major changes. Attempts to revive hte show on Broadway were thwarted by “9/11, Desert Storm and other major events,” McKelvey said. When it finally arrived at Studio 54 in 2004, “I think everyone was ready for it.”
Today, in a world where the Pittsburgh-filmed Mindhunter delved into what makes serial killers tick; when political violence is much in the news; when just this week, networks aired a John Hinckley interview, and in a time when President Trump narrowly escaped a would-be assassin’s bullet in Butler, the musical would seem to resonate as never before.
As for those naysayers, should they still exist?
“We’ve been through all those major events, and a couple of wars,” McKelvey said. “I think they’re ready to listen to what the show’s really about.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Assassins is at the Greer Cabaret, Downtown, August 20-23, 2026. Tickets: https://trustarts.org/production/109094/assassins.
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Show Previews
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