Nightmare Fuel / Assassins

• On the original 1991 off-Broadway cast album, the endings of "How I Saved Roosevelt" and "The Ballad Of Guiteau" are very eerie. The former ends with the sound of the electric chair over the end of the cheerful march music and Zangara's last scream of rage...a sound that slowly fades into silence. The latter, even spookier, goes from the triumphant final line "...And the LORD!"...to the sound of the gallows trapdoor opening, the snap of Guiteau's neck, and the creak of the swinging rope, once more fading into silence. (Which is then followed by the dissonant, wordless chorus that begins "Another National Anthem", adding to the unsettling atmosphere.)
• The end of Lee Harvey Oswald's scene, when all the assassins surround him singing about how much they admire him while he loads his rifle and prepares to shoot Kennedy. The Lyrical Dissonance and the menacing sound of the melody make it especially creepy.
• If done with a strong cast of actors and direction, the whole play is nightmare-inducing because you sympathize with people who have seriously hurt/killed others because they didn't get what they wanted.
• When performed right, Zangara's parts of "How I Saved Roosevelt" can be terrifying.
• Guiteau's attempt to force a kiss on Sara Jane Moore reveals a much more threatening side to him when he doesn't get what he wants.
• Denis O'Hare's screaming of "I SHALL BE REMEMBERED!" towards the end of the Ballad of Guiteau. Sure, it's funny at first when he talks about "promoting the sale of my book," but suddenly, the darker, psychotic side of his personality shines through.
• Booth shooting himself in the head near the end of the Ballad of Booth. Some productions that turn off the lights on him, but the Broadway one did nothing to hide Michael Cerveris flopping to the ground lifelessly.
• In the original 1991 production, "Another National Anthem" ends with the Assassins finally having enough with Balladeer and chasing him off before going to encourage Lee Harvey Oswald in the Book Depository. Beginning with the 2004 Broadway show? The Assassins (egged on this time by the Proprietor) converge on the Balladeer and surround him. When the song ends, we see (thanks to a quick costume change) that the Balladeer is none other than...Lee Harvey Oswald. It's not only heartbreaking to see a character who embodied the naive optimism of the American Dream turn into yet another embittered, jaded and cynical assassin. It's downright chilling. The casting choice has stayed put in several subsequent productions.
• The beginning of "Another National Anthem" has the assassins expressing why they assassinated/attempted to assassinate the presidents. It starts with motives that sound sympathetic, even noble (Czolgosz wanting to bring attention to the plight of workers, Booth wanting to avenge the quarter of a million Southerners who died in the Civil War, Moore wanting her friends/herself to know "where I was coming on", etc) but when Byck starts the song with "Where's my prize?" that's when the veneer starts peeling off and you see the selfish motivations peek through. Of particular note is Hinkley's scream "Because she wouldn't take my phone calls!" and Fromme's deranged insistence that Charlie Manson "would save the world" at her subsequent trial. The intro finishes with almost all of the assassins screaming "I want my prize!" That's when you realize that, even though they have sympathetic motivations, they're still selfish people who wanted "people to listen".
• The finale "Everybody's Got The Right (Reprise)" usually ends with the assassins aiming their firearms into the audience and firing just as the lights go out.