University halts ‘Assassins’ musical

A student production of “Assassins,” the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical about people who tried to kill U.S. presidents, was canceled by the administration at Arkansas Tech University this week because of recent violence at other college campuses.

The students were allowed to perform a final dress rehearsal on Wednesday night, reported, but only on the condition that wooden stage guns were cut in half before the event and not used.

In a statement explaining the decision, Robert C. Brown, Arkansas Tech’s president, said, “All of us have a healthy respect for the freedom of artistic expression that college theater represents, and all of us agree that out of respect for the families of those victims of the tragedies at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, and from an abundance of caution, it is best at this time not to undertake a campus production that contains the portrayal of graphically violent scenes.”