“Luigi: the Musical” promises to “imagine the true story” of Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old who stands accused of the December slaying of a top healthcare executive.
With the tagline “a story of love, murder, and hash browns,” the musical markets itself as a dark comedic representation of what the alleged murder’s life after his brazen killing, flight from law enforcement, and subsequent capture might look like.
The show is set in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, the notoriously hellish prison where Mangione is currently being held as he awaits trial.
It will even feature appearances from fictional versions of convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and disgraced music mogul Diddy, who are also being held in the prison.
The official synopsis for the show calls it “a wildly irreverent, razor-sharp comedy that imagines the true story of Luigi Mangione, the alleged corporate assassin turned accidental folk hero.”
“Bold, campy, and unafraid, Luigi: the Musical is both laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly thoughtful,” it continues. “If you like your comedy smart and your show tunes with a criminal record, Luigi is your new favorite felony.”
The show, set to premiere June 13 in San Francisco, comes from a trio of local minds: director Nova Bradford, executive producer Caleb Zeringue, and songwriter Arielle Johnson. It was created in just two months, according to a Wednesday San Francisco Chronicle interview with Bradford.
The director insisted that the show will not glorify Mangione’s alleged murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson.
“We’re not valorizing any of these characters, and we’re also not trivializing any of their actions or alleged actions,” Bradford told the outlet. “Comedy inherently plays at the margins of social acceptability.”
The real-life Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal charges and faces the death penalty. He was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s where he stopped off for a hash brown after allegedly fleeing New York City.
The musical draws comedy out of this moment, with the fictional Mangione at one point singing, “I shouldn’t have bought those hash browns in that Pennsylvania Mickey D’s,” according to the Chronicle.
Mangione’s good looks and apparent ideological motivations for the killing made him a viral online sensation and won him legions of supporters, who pack the audience at court hearings.
Bradford said that the musical aims to explore the obsession with Mangione. “One of the central ideas that we wanted to explore with this musical is this tendency for us to project meaning onto these types of figures,” she said.
The rehearsal process for the show is being detailed on its Instagram page, including a behind-the-scenes sneak peek of the fictional Mangione sharing a duet with his prison guard.
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