e said this to a drunk in a bar who told him he'd never live up to his famous father. In less than an hour, Abraham Lincoln would be mortally wounded and Booth would be on the run, suddenly the most wanted man in America.

But what pushed him over the edge? Was it simply his hatred of Lincoln and the North? Booth wrote, “Our country owed all her troubles to him. . . The country is not what it was.” Was it because he was jealous of his acclaimed brother and wanted to rebel against the wishes of his dead father, who taught him to respect all living creatures? Or was it because the of shame caused by his years of inaction and betrayal of his loved ones and family, that drove him in his despair to commit this act? The Most Famous Man in America explores the psyche of the most famous assassin in history, and explodes the myth that he was a one-dimensional mad glory-seeker. Nothing could be further from the truth! As a matinee idol, Booth was the Tom Cruise of his era, wildly successful as an actor and first in the hearts of the ladies… and there were many ladies—but there was only one who captured his heart. He was the scion of a prominent acting family that included his melancholy brother Edwin(namesake of Broadway’s Booth Theatre) and father Junius Brutus, the best-known actor of his generation whose tales of drinking and madness are legendary. Booth is essentially a nineteenth-century terrorist. Rather than apologize for or indict, this play hopes to entertain, and allow the audience to judge for themselves The Most Famous Man in America.