Sold-out musical about Luigi Mangione adds new S.F. date
' Luigi: The Musical,' inspired by the social media frenzy surrounding the 27-year-old suspect in the murder case of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has added a July 13 performance at the Independent. The music venue on Divisadaro Street has a capacity of 500, roughly five times that of the Taylor Street Theater, where the show premieres Friday, June 13.
All five of the production's originally announced June performances at the Taylor Street Theater, the former Exit on Taylor in the Tenderloin, sold out more than a month ago.
'Luigi: The Musical' was developed by Nova Bradford, Arielle Johnson, André Margatini and Caleb Zeringue, and is staged in the style of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical 'Chicago.'
The satirical show is set at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center and features Mangione alongside a fictional group of prison mates including Sean 'Diddy' Combs, whose sex trafficking and racketeering trial began last month, and fallen FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
'Luigi the character, as we've written him, is dead serious about his thoughts and goals,' Johnson previously told the Chronicle. 'There's something campy about the whole 'good guy with a gun' premise.'
As Johnson and his colleagues prepared for the stage production's June 13 premiere, the real Mangione pleaded not guilty to four federal charges against him for the murder of Thompson in December.
He is next set to appear in court June 26. During the appearance, a trial date may be set.
Mangione spent his 27th birthday last month at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held without bail since Dec. 19. To mark the occasion, he sent a list of 27 things he's grateful for to various people who have been writing him letters while he has been locked up. The list has since gone viral on social media and features entries such as 'memes' and 'Latinas for Mangione,' both nods to the internet discourse around his arrest.
Mangione also revealed that around 30,000 people donated more than $1 million to his legal fund, and expressed gratitude for the various books and letters that he has received.
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