John Hinckley
(1955-)
Intended victim: Ronald Reagan
Date: March 30, 1981

A drifter and aspiring songwriter, Mr. Hinckley became obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster and the 1976 film ''Taxi Driver,'' in which she played a prostitute. Trying to impress her, he shot President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has been confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. A judge recently ruled he could have unsupervised visits with his parents outside the hospital.
Quote from the show: ''With one brave, historic act I will win your love, now and for all eternity.''
Actor: Alexander Gemignani


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Sara Jane Moore
(1930-)
Intended Victim: Gerald Ford
Date: Sept. 22, 1975

An unhappy accountant who had been in and out of nursing school, the Women's Army Corps and five marriages, Ms. Moore became a radical leftist and, ultimately, an F.B.I. informant. In San Francisco, as President Ford walked from the St. Francis Hotel to his limousine, Ms. Moore fired a shot at him from across the street, but a bystander deflected the gun. Ms. Moore is serving a life sentence.

Quote from the show: ''I did it so I'd know where I was coming from.''
Actress: Becky Ann Baker


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Giuseppe Zangara
(1900-1933)
Intended Victim: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Date: Feb. 15, 1933

Zangara came to the United States from Italy when he was 22 and worked as a bricklayer. During the Depression, he blamed the government not only for his poverty but also for his chronic stomach pain. After the president-elect gave a speech from his car in a Miami park, Zangara shot into the crowd, missing Roosevelt but killing the mayor of Chicago. He was sentenced to the electric chair.

Quote from the show: ''I did it 'cause the bosses made my belly burn.''
Actor: Jeffrey Kuhn


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John Wilkes Booth
(1838-1865)
Victim: Abraham Lincoln
Date: April 14, 1865

Booth was a respected stage actor (his brother Edwin Booth was a famous one) and an ardent supporter of the Confederacy. He shot the president during a performance of ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theater in Washington, jumped from the box onto the stage -- breaking his leg -- and managed to escape. Lincoln died the next day. Two weeks later, soldiers found Booth in a Virginia barn, where he was killed either by a soldier's bullet or his own.

Quote from the show: ''Sic Semper Tyrannis!'' (''Thus always to tyrants'')
Actor: Michael Cerveris


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Lee Harvey Oswald
(1939-1963)
Victim: John F. Kennedy
Date: Nov. 22, 1963

A misfit who moved briefly to the Soviet Union and returned disillusioned, Oswald shot Kennedy from a window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas as the president's motorcade drove by. During his escape, he killed a policeman, but was arrested in a movie theater shortly after. Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald on live television before he could be tried. Shrouded in mystery, Kennedy's killing remains the most widely debated presidential assassination.

Quote from the show: Booth (to Oswald): ''You're the big one.''
Actor: Neil Patrick Harris


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Samuel Byck
(1930-1974)
Intended victim: Richard Nixon
Date: Feb. 22, 1974

Byck was a lonely, unemployed tire salesman who blamed Nixon for his troubles. He protested outside the White House in a Santa Claus suit and sent taped messages to the likes of Leonard Bernstein and Jonas Salk describing ''Operation Pandora's Box'': his plan to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House. At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Byck forced his way onto an Atlanta-bound flight. Police shot him from outside the plane; he then shot and killed himself.

Quote from the show: ''Nobody would listen!''
Actor: Mario Cantone


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Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme
(1948-)
Intended Victim: Gerald Ford
Date: Sept. 5, 1975

A member of the Manson ''family,'' Ms. Fromme wanted to be tried so the cult figure Charles Manson could take the stand and expound on his fringe religious views. Outside the California state capitol in Sacramento, she pointed a gun at President Ford, before the Secret Service wrestled it from her. She is serving a life sentence.

Quote from the show: ''Charlie will emerge as king of a new order, with me beside him as his queen.''
Actress: Mary Catherine Garrison


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Charles Guiteau
(1841-1882)
Victim: James Garfield
Date: July 2, 1881

A religious eccentric and would-be lawyer, he involved himself in Garfield's campaign but failed to get a diplomatic post. He also hoped to publicize his book of musings on religion, ''The Truth.'' He shot Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac railroad station in Washington. The president died two and a half months later, after little more than six months in office. Guiteau was found guilty and hanged.

Quote from the show: ''I am to be reckoned with! I am the next ambassador to France!''
Actor: Denis O'Hare

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Leon Czolgosz
(1873-1901)
Victim: William McKinley
Date: Sept. 6, 1901

Czolgosz, the son of Eastern European immigrants, was a Midwestern factory worker who admired the anarchist Emma Goldman and considered McKinley an enemy of the working class. He shot McKinley in a receiving line at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. McKinley died eight days later. Czolgosz died in the electric chair.

Quote from the show: ''It is wrong for one man to have so much service when other men have none.''
Actor: James Barbour


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ASSASSINS Letter published April 18th, 2004
To the Editor:

The headline accompanying Zachary Pincus-Roth's article [April 11] — "Murderers' Row: Who Plays Whom in Stephen Sondheim's `Assassins' " — should have read "John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim's `Assassins.' " Book writers rarely receive the credit they deserve for musicals, and this omission was an especially egregious one.

And contrary to what Jesse Green's excellent article on Joe Mantello reported ["Surviving `Assassins,' " April 11], I didn't tell Joe that the show was the only perfect thing I'd ever written; rather, that it was the closest thing to perfect of any show I'd been connected with, by which I meant the closest to realizing what my collaborator and I intended — a realization as rare in the musical theater as the recognition of book writers.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Manhattan