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| John Wilkes Booth. Image from the United States Library of Congress. |
John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland in 1838, one of ten children
of America’s preeminent nineteenth-century actor, Edwin Booth and his former
mistress, Mary Ann Holmes. Raised outside of Baltimore, Booth had an erratic
life before taking to the stage at age seventeen, and quickly becoming a
matinee idol. A Confederate sympathizer, his plan to kidnap President Abraham
Lincoln to force a prisoner exchange escalated into an assassination plot.
Booth carried out the murder during a performance of the English comedy Our American Cousin at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre on Good Friday in April 1865. Booth evaded a massive manhunt for twelve days before being shot to death by
authorities in a Virginia barn. Booth was only twenty-six.
New York actor Danny Binstock makes his PlayMakers debut in this unforgettable role. Recently on Broadway in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Danny brings his accomplished musical theatre background to our stage for Assassins.
Trivia
Q 1. What
distinguishing feature was the coroner able to use as proof of Booth’s
identity?
Q 2. After the assassination, under what alias did Booth travel while seeking refuge?
Q 3. What
line of dialogue in the English comedy Our
American Cousin had Booth planned as his cue for the Lincoln killing?
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| JWB Wanted Poster. Image courtesy of Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division. |
A 1: As
a boy, Booth had tattooed his initials between the thumb and index finger of
his left hand. Like much of Booth’s history, this fact is widely contested.
A 2: James
W. Boyd, a Confederate officer. (Booth
also adopted the fairly transparent disguise of a false beard.)
A 3: “You
sockdologizing old man-trap!”: an insult line that never failed to elicit a
roar of laughter from audiences. Booth was familiar with both Ford’s Theatre
and that current play in performance.
