‘Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story’ kicks off 2016 at Good Company Theatre
Berlin Schlegel, left, and Nick Morris star in Good Company Theatre’s “Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story,” which starts Feb. 12.
Berlin Schlegel, left, and Nick Morris star in Good Company Theatre’s “Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story,” which starts Feb. 12.
OGDEN — The Good Company Theatre is kicking off 2016 with a twisty, two-person musical, “Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story,” on Feb. 12.
The musical, based on a true story, tells the tale of two wealthy college students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who drove up to a young boy on the streets of Chicago in 1924 and asked him to get into their car. The two had meticulously planned for months how to commit the perfect crime — kidnapping the boy, killing him and hiding the body. The act was to demonstrate their superior intellect and devotion to each other. But they ended up imprisoned and separated for life. In the musical, there are flashbacks that reveal the nature of their relationship, and the crime is exposed.
“It’s important to know that this is not your average musical,” director Derek Williamson said. “Even though it touches on the heavy subject of a real-life kidnapping and murder, it challenges audiences to separate the activity of Leopold and Loeb from what might have been their motives.”
WHAT: “Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story”
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 12-28, and 4 p.m. Sundays
WHERE: Good Company Theatre, 2nd floor of 260 Historic 25th St., Ogden.
ADMISSION: $17, purchase at www.goodcotheatre.com or at the door prior to the show.
Williamson has never directed a musical before, and he has loved the challenge. Williamson said when Camille and Alicia Washington, producers and co-owners of Good Company Theatre, were deciding on scripts, they were trying to decide if this show was right for their theater. “I told them it was exactly perfect,” Williamson said. “It is edgy and it makes you think.”
He wasn’t going to be the director at first, but when the Washington sisters offered it to him, he jumped at the chance. “It has been exciting, and it is a really stellar production team and cast,” Williamson said. He has been impressed with how quickly the actors, Berlin Schlegel and Nick Morris, have been able to move through the material and make things work. “This isn’t your regular flashy high dancing, can-can kicks kind of musical,” Williamson said. He noted that a lot of the show is music, but it is deep and filled with strong emotion.
“The small, sparse ensemble of two men and a piano lends an immediacy and an intimacy to Thrill Me,” musical director Nicholas Maughan said. “We bear witness to private moments between two men whose attraction to and repulsion from each other drives them to commit a terrible crime.”
Williamson said audiences will walk away with a lot of questions that will make them think. “It is different, exciting, eerie and creepy,” Williamson said. “But it is new, and it’s fun to experience new things.”
This will be the first showing of playwright Stephen Dolginoff’s “Thrill Me” in Utah. It received a Drama Desk Award nomination for best musical and best score. The show contains pervasive adult themes, including the dramatization of arson and murder, so discretion is strongly advised.
