Content warning: This article discusses racism and the use of the N-word.
The Northwestern student body erupted into public discussion regarding the use of the N-word in Lovers & Madmen’s production of “Assassins” and the slur’s impact on Black communities this weekend. L&M, a student theatre board, canceled the show’s final two performances and has since published an official apology, voicing the board’s commitment to prioritizing diverse perspectives going forward.
The cancellation announcement was made by an L&M member to attendees waiting to enter the Norris University Center McCormick Auditorium just before the 2 p.m. Saturday performance. Those anticipating the performance of the Tony-Award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical — based on America’s presidential assassins — talked to cast and production team members before leaving Norris with unredeemed tickets.
Preceding the decision to forfeit the remaining shows, “Assassins” garnered a great deal of attention on social media after production team members uploaded a content warning to the “Assassins” Instagram account on Thursday. The post informed audience members of potentially unsettling content in the musical, including the use of the N-word by white character John Wilkes Booth — portrayed by a white actor — in the second song, “The Ballad of Booth.”
The L&M board uploaded the same post separately to its Instagram account before opening night and included a link in the account’s bio to a one-page document of resources related to the usage of the N-word. The document additionally offered three bullet points to explain what contextual and character development elements the use of the N-word adds to “Assassins.”
The resources document referenced the following as being reasons for the N-word’s inclusion in the song: “breaks the audience’s building sympathy with Booth,” “places a significant contradiction in Booth’s world view and the lyrics” and “alleviates the tension building in the song” as audience members “are (subconsciously) waiting for this moment in the show despite it being shocking.”
The L&M board did not respond to The Daily’s requests for comment before the time of publication.
Some students took to social media to condemn the usage of the N-word in a production featuring a predominately non-Black cast and crew, calling upon the production to either remove the word from the song or cancel its final two shows.
The calls to action mostly came in the form of Instagram stories and comments under the content warning post on the “Assassins” account. Other discussions occurred on NU’s Fizz, a college-specific social media platform that allows students to post anonymous messages to others at their school.
L&M also came under fire for disabling the comments section under the content warning post on its Instagram page. Some commenters on the “Assassins” content warning post claimed owners of the show’s account had deleted certain comments calling out the show for its usage of a racial slur. As of the time of publication, comments on the “Assassins” Instagram account are turned on, but comments on two of the three most recent L&M posts are turned off.
SESP sophomore Noel Matthews was among the commenters under the “Assassins” account post. Matthews said to The Daily that as a Black woman, it was “frustrating” to see the word used in this context and that advocating for its removal “should not only be Black people’s fight.”
“Putting on this play and using that word in that statement is a form of violence,” Matthews said. “Whether you are complicit with it in solely a theatre sense or a non-theatrical sense, using the N-word is violent. It’s linguistic violence, and that should not be condoned by anybody.”
Other students echoed this sentiment. Communication sophomore Elebetel Negusse, who is involved in NU’s theatre community, described the usage of the N-word as a “racist action” with “nothing else to defend it.”
Negusse added that the inclusion of the N-word was “inconsiderate” of NU’s Black community.
“I think from now on, it’s about time to start having conversations within both Northwestern, but especially within the NU theatre community, about anti-Blackness and what it has done to the Black students in the theatre community, Black students in the artist community,” Negusse said.
Weinberg junior Aja Frazier, who served as the show’s dramaturg — a role that involved researching the show to provide important context and insights to the rehearsal room — also spoke out on social media Sunday.
“I am not a Black ‘artist’ who wanted to fit in with NU white theater and therefore disregarded my community,” Frazier said in a statement linked on her Instagram story. Rather, she joined the production because of “its relevance to today’s climate” and wanted to “make it a safe environment in a white-dominant theater space,” she said in the statement.
Though Frazier joined the team after the production process had initially begun, she was informed by other team members that conversations around the decision to include or exclude the N-word had started by the time the audition process began, she told The Daily. These conversations involved Frazier once she joined the production and continued until mere hours before the show opened, she said.
Frazier, who clarified that she spoke to The Daily as an individual and not a spokesperson for L&M or “Assassins,” said she personally engaged in conversations in the rehearsal room surrounding the usage of the N-word. As the dramaturg, she researched what Sondheim said regarding the use of the slur in the musical and the views of theatre artists both advocating for and against the usage of the N-word in theatre, she told The Daily.
Frazier led “difficult” but “productive” conversations with those involved with “Assassins” that included discussions of comfortability, personal experiences and the history all concerning the N-word, she added.
However, even as part of the production team, Frazier told The Daily she was “in the gray” on what the final decision would be. She found out with the rest of the crowd on opening night, at the 6:30 p.m. show on Friday.
“I don’t know, again, what decisions factored into what when it came to the use of the word,” Frazier said. “Even when I was sitting down in the seat, I was still wondering if any last minute changes were gonna happen.”
Ultimately, the two Friday shows included the use of the N-word.
Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, L&M released an official statement to its Instagram account regarding the slur’s usage. The statement said L&M “failed to engage in meaningful conversations with the Black community” regarding the use of the N-word and will develop strategies for “preventing harm in the future.”
“We are profoundly sorry for the harm we caused,” the statement read. “Art should never come at the expense of the safety of Black and POC communities. Because of our actions and inactions, it did.”
The “Assassins” director, producer nor the actor portraying Booth responded to The Daily’s requests for comment.
For Members Only and the Black Mentorship Program, two student groups providing support and community to Black students and working toward justice, posted a statement jointly to the two groups’ Instagram accounts Saturday.
“The choice to include such language reflects a failure to consider the lived experiences of Black students and perpetuates a culture where our concerns are dismissed in favor of artistic justification,” FMO and BMP said in the statement.
Weinberg sophomore and FMO’s Associated Student Government Senator Ay Taiwo said she wrote the statement with SESP junior and FMO co-Coordinator Riley Morris. Taiwo said that although she understands why the production may have wanted to include the word to demonstrate the character’s racist beliefs, the oppressive and hateful history of the word “trumps portraying that he’s racist.”
“There’s a lot of other ways that you can get that point across without using such a historically-tied word to the Black community,” Taiwo said.
Taiwo said she does not believe “Assassins” team members engaged in “any communication with any of the Black student groups” when deciding whether to use the N-word in the song and added that some student theatre artists encouraged “Assassins” team members earlier on in the process to find an alternative “more inclusive for everyone.”
At the time of publication, the L&M board and the “Assassins” director and producer had not responded to The Daily’s inquiry into whether members of the theatre community had asked “Assassins” to explore options not including the N-word.
Frazier told The Daily she thinks “the cast were put in a very difficult position” and feels that “the cast and the pit and crew are least to blame for this situation.” She added that she believes the conversations regarding minority representation in theatre spurred by “Assassins” are important to have, but wishes the “Assassins” criticism was accompanied by a recognition of the conversations that had occurred about the use of the N-word.
“I just wish that (the criticism of the show) had been done in a way that wasn’t so disregarding of the humanity and the things that went on behind the scenes that aren’t visible to the public, because, of course, these things go through layers and layers of edits and censorship and adjustments,” Frazier said.
Frazier still emphasized the hurt caused to those in the Black community, as “the history behind the word is indescribable.”
The “Assassins” production team cited copyright concerns as one of the main reasons for keeping the N-word in the song, Frazier said, adding that non-student advisors to both the Northwestern Student Theatre Coalition and L&M pushed for the N-word to remain in the show for these reasons.
Music Theatre International owns the rights to “Assassins” and does not permit any changes to the material unless the production company obtains approval from the licensing agency.
“I would like to say that there were alternatives proposed, multiple which involved substitution, audio manipulation and things like that,” Frazier said. “However, when these alterations were proposed, they were explicitly shut down by the advisors, saying that there would be severe legal implications.”
According to Frazier, MTI is known to watch NU’s shows to ensure productions maintain the integrity of their scripts.
Some weren’t convinced by this explanation. Communication junior and ASG Senator Ryan Lien was a rights representative for StuCo, a role in which he said he managed applications, contracts and payments to secure performance rights for all StuCo shows that required licensing. Lien said he believes the “Assassins” team could have found a solution to avoid saying the N-word in the show.
“I find it unlikely that MTI would not allow for the removal of that word, seeing as I have worked on shows in the past in which we have changed harmful or outdated language, officially with approval from MTI,” Lien said.
The L&M board and the “Assassins” director and producer had not replied to The Daily’s inquiry into whether they requested approval from MTI to omit the N-word by the time of this article’s publication.
Lien also posted a statement in his official capacity as an ASG senator to Instagram on Saturday, urging the theatre board to issue an apology and announcing his intentions to encourage ASG and the Student Activities Finance Committee to decrease L&M’s funding for the 2025-2026 school year if it does not address the harm done.
Bienen and McCormick junior and ASG co-President James La Fayette Jr. posted on his Instagram story Saturday to condemn the usage of the N-word in “Assassins.”
La Fayette Jr. said that hatred is on the rise in the current political climate. Those carrying out oppressive acts are “encouraged to continue their hatred towards minorities” because those in power are doing so as well. Therefore, it is important to raise one’s voice in the face of injustice, he said.
“Being silent about an issue like this is a form of being (complicit). If you choose not to care about it or not to say anything about it, that’s basically saying, ‘Yeah, this is okay. I’m not against this,’” La Fayette Jr. told The Daily. “I’m glad that a lot of students shared their opinions and that it spread around pretty quickly. Hopefully, that’s what pushed them to cancel it.”
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