A spate of theatrical shows based on the life of Luigi Mangione are set to hit the stage before summer, turning the murder suspect into a fictional hero.
On the morning of December 4, 2024, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old husband and father of two, was about to enter a Hilton Hotel in Manhattan when Mangione allegedly walked up behind him and fatally shot him at point-blank range.
Shell casings found at the scene had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” inscribed on them, lending many to suppose the killer harbored violent animus against Thompson for his association with the health care industry.
After a days-long manhunt, Mangione was recognized by an employee at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 300 miles west of Manhattan, and arrested.
He has pled not guilty to a bevy of New York state and federal charges, including murder and terrorism. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has already pledged to seek the death penalty in Mangione’s case.
‘We acknowledge the pain and complexity surrounding the case.’
Despite the vicious accusations against him, 26-year-old Mangione has inspired several fictional stories that are scheduled to hit stages across America next month.
Notably, all five performances of “Luigi: The Musical,” which will debut in San Francisco on June 13, have already sold out.
According to TicketTailor, the musical is “a wildly irreverent, razor-sharp comedy” that imagines Mangione, an “accidental folk hero,” interacting with two other high-profile inmates at Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn: Sean “Diddy” Combs, who remains locked up at MDCB while awaiting trial, and Sam Bankman-Fried, who has since been transferred.
In a press release posted to a website for the show, creators insisted that “Luigi” is “not a celebration of violence of any kind” but instead a “satire” that asks “deeper cultural questions” about “modern disillusionment” with the health care, tech, and entertainment industries.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Brian Thompson,” the statement added, “and we acknowledge the pain and complexity surrounding the case.”
Another show, “Take Your Shot,” is a one-act “political satire” in which a Mangione look-alike serves as an “unhinged” motivational speaker, according to a promo sent to Blaze News. Produced by INDECLINE, a far-left “activist art collective,” in partnership with sketch comedians TSTMRKT, “Take Your Shot” is billed as the latest installment of “politically charged and brazen performance art” in the “Trump era.”
In a statement, the artists with INDECLINE and TSTMRKT said of “Take Your Shot”: “This performance is about being pushed to the wall and forced to make a choice as to whether we repeat history or make it. Our hope is to have the audience take a bit of the violence home with them as a souvenir and to never forget what they witnessed in the dark with us.”
“If not now, then when?”
“Take Your Shot” is scheduled to be performed at Cheapshot in Downtown Las Vegas during the Fallout Fringe Festival from June 11 to June 13. Blaze News made repeated calls to Cheapshot, but those calls were all immediately disconnected. An email to Corner Bar Management, which owns Cheapshot, was not returned.
Yet another performance, “Deny Delay De-Lovely: The Luigi Mangione Musical,” was scheduled to debut in June as well, in this case in Austin, Texas, home of the Tin Pan Pally multimedia and music production company. However, “Deny Delay De-Lovely” has since been “postponed” due to “unforeseen circumstances,” the theater website said. All tickets will be refunded.
In an email, Tin Pan Pally told Blaze News: “Our production largely dealt with the McDonalds employee that turned him in. We attempted to satirize the health care industry and workers wages without condoning the violence and murder of Brian Thompson. We hope to bring the production back soon.”
For now, Mangione remains locked up at MDCB with Combs. On Saturday, defense attorneys pushed to have the state charges against Mangione dismissed, citing double jeopardy concerns. According to the BBC, Mangione is expected to appear in federal court again in December.
Jury selection in Combs’ case began on Monday.
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