Half a year ago, Luigi Mangione was a nobody. Then, on Dec. 9, 2024, the 26-year-old Ivy League grad was thrust into the spotlight when he was arrested at a MacDonald’s in Pennsylvania, suspected of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson days earlier in New York City, in what has become one of the most high-profile apparent assassinations in recent U.S. history.
Now, the murder-suspect-turned-folk-hero is the subject of a new musical comedy set to premiere next month in San Francisco.
“Luigi: The Musical” is being described by its creators as “campy, surreal and funny” yet “emotionally honest.” It imagines Mangione sharing a prison cell with the now-convicted tech entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried along with Sean “Diddy” Combs, the American rapper accused of sex trafficking. It’s all predicated on the fact that, in real life, all three men happened to be incarcerated at the same facility.
While the jury’s still out on whether “Luigi” is any good, it’s already a box office hit and completely sold out for its initial run.
Public reaction, however, has been more mixed. Is a musical of this sort a depraved money grab? Does it glorify violence? Or could it be potentially brilliant?
The team behind “Luigi,” led by director Nova Bradford and songwriter Arielle Johnson, have been quick to defend the work. “This show is not a celebration of violence of any kind, nor is it an attempt to pass judgment on an ongoing legal matter,” its creators said in a press release.
“Instead, ‘Luigi: The Musical’ uses satire to ask deeper cultural questions,” they continued. “Why did this case strike such a chord with so many people? Why did a figure like Luigi become a kind of folk hero in certain corners of the internet? What does that say about how we see institutions in America today?”
I’ll save my judgment until I actually see this musical — and that’s only if it finds it’s way up to Toronto, which I highly doubt. But it’s interesting to look at some of the backlash the production has already received.
I think much of it is borne out of false assumptions about what musical theatre can be. True crime shows like “Luigi,” in fact, are not unprecedented.
“Chicago,” the longest-running American musical in Broadway history, is based on a 1926 play about the court cases of two female murder suspects. In “Assassins,” Stephen Sondheim and collaborator John Weidman follow nine individuals who assassinated, or tried to kill, various U.S. presidents. (Not included: the recent attempt on President Donald Trump’s life.)
The art form has also not shied away from sensitive subjects. Look at the Canadian musical “Come From Away,” initially dismissed by some as exploiting the tragedy of Sept. 11 for its own gain, only to prove those critics wrong when it opened on Broadway.
In short, there’s more to musical theatre than singing cats, dancing candlesticks and green witches defying gravity.
The only difference between “Luigi” and these other shows is its timing. Musicals typically take years to write. “Luigi” is coming to fruition in just six months.
Perhaps some will argue that this is all too soon. But the theatre can — and should — reflect what’s happening in the world right now. Not everything should be left as fodder for “Saturday Night Live.”
Musicals also don’t need to be vapid. Comedies don’t merely have to be silly. As “Chicago” and “Assassins” prove, this complex art form can be the best medium to hold up a mirror to society — be that, in the case of the Kander and Ebb hit, an exploration of the broken American justice system or, as with Sondheim’s dark comedy, the corruption of the American Dream.
So “Luigi: The Musical,” perverse as it may sound, is nothing new. It only joins a long line of musicals that help us confront the chaos in our world.
