Character guide
Lee Harvey Oswald
from Assassins
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963, appears in the climactic sequence of Assassins, Stephen Sondheim's 2004 musical.
- Show
- Assassins
- Broadway premiere
- 2004
- Role
- Lead
- Music by
- Stephen Sondheim
Who is Lee Harvey Oswald?
Oswald appears near the end of Assassins, alone and contemplating suicide in the Texas School Book Depository, before the ghosts of the earlier assassins, led by Booth, materialize around him. Together they urge him to shoot Kennedy instead, presenting the act as his entry into their strange, damaged family of assassins.
Unlike Booth's confident self-mythologizing, Oswald is written as isolated, uncertain, and easily swayed, which makes the scene less a portrait of ideology than of loneliness weaponized by the group that surrounds him.
Oswald's role in Assassins
Oswald is a lead role concentrated in the show's pivotal final sequence, requiring an actor who can convey real vulnerability and confusion rather than menace. The scene depends on the audience believing Oswald could have gone either way in that moment.
In the 2004 Broadway revival, Neil Patrick Harris played both the Balladeer and Oswald, a doubling that gave the finale added weight, since the narrator who had commented on the other assassins throughout the show became the one who finally succumbed.
Lee Harvey Oswald: frequently asked questions
What show is Lee Harvey Oswald from?
Lee Harvey Oswald is a lead character in Assassins, which opened on Broadway in 2004.
Is Lee Harvey Oswald a lead or supporting role?
Oswald is a lead role, central to the show's climactic final sequence.
Who wrote the music for Assassins?
Stephen Sondheim composed the music and lyrics for Assassins.
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