Exciting news for fans of Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun. His new rock opera Killin' Republicans opens tomorrow night (Thursday, November 30) at Theater for the New City.
Though best known as a sideshow impresario and creator of the Mermaid Parade, Zigun has been an experimental playwright since before the beginning. Some of his previous works have included Dead End Dummy, The Education of Al Capone as if Told by Jimmy Durante, and Bloody Brains in a Jukebox (the latter, his most recent, was shuttered early in the run by the Covid lockdown).
I've been following the progress of Killin' Republicans for years, and have been privy to its contents and can reassure you that the content of the show is not nearly as explosive as it sounds. It's not about present day politics or (least of all) a prescription for future action, but a sort of surreal, steam-of-consciousness reflection on American history, although with an inevitable Just Desserts/The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost perspective on it. While it will inevitably be compared to Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, neither Dead Presidents nor their slayers are represented as characters in the show. It takes the form of a kind of Socratic conversation among three first classic passengers on a jet airplane: Jodie Foster, ostensible inspiration for Hinckley's attempt on Reagan's life (Abby Humpper), as well as an Afrobeat star, clearly based on Zigun's actual ex-wife Princess Pat, to whom the play is dedicated (Queen Koleurz Koluchi), and a Mississippi oil tycoon (Edwin Vazquez). And their topics of conversation tend to dwell on the mortal ends of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Directed by an individual known only as "vagabond", the show features nonstop music in a wide variety of styles, composed by Arturo "Artie" Rodriguez.
Killin' Republicans is open at TNC November 30 to December 17. More information and tickets are here. (And once you're there, I highly recommend sticking around the building for a couple of days if the night guard doesn't catch you in the cloakroom. On December 2, TNC is hosting a salute to composer David Amram, last of the Beat crowd, who just published his memoir; and on December 6, Bread and Puppet Theatre return for their annual holiday show. There is a history and then there is history. TNC's main page is here)
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