ABOUT
BORDEN: A New Musical centers on Emma Borden, the sister history forgot, and the promise that defined her life. In the days surrounding the infamous 1892 murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, Emma struggles to hold her family together as tensions rise within their home and her younger sister Lizzie longs for a life beyond it. When the murders shatter everything, Emma becomes Lizzie’s fiercest defender, bound by a vow she made to their dying mother to protect her at all costs. As suspicion, public scrutiny, and shifting power dynamics threaten to unravel the truth, Emma is forced to confront the limits of loyalty and the weight of loving someone forever.
MEET THE TEAM
Cavan Hendron
Creator, Book, Lyrics
Aaron Roitman
Book
Matthew Nassida
Music, Lyrics
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Neeta Thadani
Director
Cara Robertson
Dramaturg, Historical Consulting
Audrey Belle Adams
Showrunning Producer
THE HISTORY
On the morning of August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found murdered in their home at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew, a prominent businessman, had been struck twelve times in the face with a hatchet. Abby, his wife and Lizzie’s stepmother, had been attacked even more violently — struck from behind while facing the wall of the guest bedroom, eighteen times.
Suspicion quickly fell on Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie Borden, who was home at the time of the murders. Her inconsistent testimony, a recently burned dress, and a strained relationship with her stepmother fueled public interest and police scrutiny.
Lizzie was arrested and charged with both murders. The trial began in June 1893 and gripped the nation. With no eyewitnesses, no murder weapon definitively tied to her, and no blood found on Lizzie herself, the jury found her not guilty. She walked free, but public opinion remained divided.
Lizzie and her older sister, Emma, lived together in a new home they named “Maplecroft,” just a mile from the scene of the crime.
Over the years, their relationship fractured, and the sisters eventually parted ways. The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden were never solved, and the case remains one of the most infamous unsolved mysteries in American history.
Over 130 years later, the question still lingers: did Lizzie Borden kill her father and stepmother, or was she the victim of circumstance, caught in a storm of suspicion and scandal?
Photo courtesy of The Fall River Historical Society
HOW IS BORDEN DIFFERENT
Most stage adaptations of the Lizzie Borden story focus on the crime itself. BORDEN shifts the lens entirely. This is not a retelling of the murders. It is an excavation of the relationship that history left behind.
By centering Emma Borden, the sister often reduced to a footnote, the piece reframes the narrative as a story about loyalty, control, and the cost of loving someone without limits. The question is no longer “Did Lizzie do it?” but “What does it mean to stand beside someone when the world turns against them?”
Rather than sensationalizing violence, BORDEN lives in the aftermath. It explores the emotional, psychological, and social consequences of the crime, allowing audiences to sit inside the tension of uncertainty and perception.
BORDEN is also the first stage or screen adaptation of this story to be developed in collaboration with Cara Robertson, widely regarded as the leading scholar on the case. No previous theatrical, film, or television adaptation has consulted her work in this way. Her involvement brings an unprecedented level of historical depth and rigor to the piece, grounding its emotional storytelling in a foundation of meticulous research.
WORKING WITH CARA ROBERTSON
When telling a story as infamous and intricately layered as that of Lizzie Borden, the line between fact and folklore can become dangerously thin. From nursery rhymes to tabloid headlines, the case has been sensationalized for over a century. But for us, accuracy mattered. Integrity mattered. The people behind the headlines mattered.
That’s why, from the earliest stages of development, we’ve turned to one of the foremost authorities on the case: Cara Robertson. A Harvard-educated legal scholar and the author of the award-winning book The Trial of Lizzie Borden, Cara has spent more than three decades studying the case. Her work is widely regarded as the most thorough, balanced, and thoughtful account of the trial and the world it took place in questions.
Not just about what may have happened behind the closed doors of 92 Second Street, but why it still matters
It’s rare to create new theater in such close collaboration with a leading historian, and even rarer still to find one as generous, passionate, and brilliant as Cara. We are endlessly grateful to call her a collaborator, a sounding board, and a guiding light as we bring BORDEN to life.
ABOUT CARA ROBERTSON
Cara Robertson began researching the Borden case as a Harvard undergraduate in 1990. She holds a PhD from Oxford University and a JD from Stanford Law School. She clerked at the Supreme Court of the United States, served as Associate Legal Officer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, and has written for various publications. Her scholarship has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center, of which she is a Trustee. The Trial of Lizzie Borden is her first book.
“An enthralling, "definitive account" of the notorious 1892 murder case.”
- The New York Times
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IN MEMORY
of Andrew & Abby Borden
As we continue to develop BORDEN: A New Musical, we carry with us a deep awareness that this story is rooted in real lives and real loss. It is easy, especially with time, distance, and public fascination, for true crime to blur into myth and for real people to become characters. But we remind ourselves, always, that Andrew and Abby Borden were not characters. They were human beings. Horrible things happened to them.
Every time we tell or share this story, whether in a rehearsal room, a theatre, or on a stage like this, we do so in memory of Andrew and Abby. Their lives and deaths are not just the beginning of a mystery. They are the center of a tragedy. We approach this work with reverence, responsibility, and the hope that our storytelling can honor the real people at its heart.
BORDEN: A New Musical centers on Emma Borden, the sister history forgot, and the promise that defined her life.
BORDEN: A New Musical centers on Emma Borden, the sister history forgot, and the promise that defined her life.
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