11 Great Musicals With Mature Themes

6. Assassins

Assassins is possibly the most thematically complex of all the entries in this article, placing itself in a unique position by directing the audience€™s focus towards some of the most notorious and despised people in history. Eschewing traditional narrative forms, this musical instead chooses to focus on people who have both attempted to and successfully assassinated American Presidents, and through their interactions with each other, attempt to pinpoint why they did what they did. Ultimately, the major reason that this musical often finds itself being given a mature rating is because of the re-enactment of the murders of American Presidents. This touchy and confronting issue €“ combined with vast amounts of gun violence and coarse language €“ immediately found dissenters and was declared as child inappropriate entertainment. However, the aspect that truly separates this musical from the traditional family friendly affairs is the ideas that it attempts to tackle. Beginning and ending with the song Everybody€™s Got the Right, Assassins studies the flaws of the American dream and the price that a nation must pay for being recognised as the place where anybody€™s dream can come true. The musical comes to a chilling climax not long before the assassination of John F. Kennedy where, during the song Another National Anthem, all the characters are prompted to explain their reasons for their actions, which results in all the Assassins screaming their ideologies over the top of one another. The second musical on this list to feature Neil Patrick Harris in one of the leading roles, this musical was practically ignored during its Off-Broadway debut, but has since found a second life with its Broadway premiere in 2003. With 5 Tony Awards and 3 Drama Desk Awards, this musical is for all those who like incredibly dark humour mixed with a touch of philosophy.