The summer has been crowded by debuts from new theatre companies. Earlier today, yet another new theatre company sent out a press release about its debut production. Starting September 17th, Theatrical Tendencies opens its doors with the Milwaukee premiere of Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story. The production opens seven months prior to In Tandem Theatre’s production of the musical.
A musical about a couple of rich, well-educated kids who decided to kill someone in Chicagoessentially because they thought they could get away with itis a fascinating subject for a musical. The two evidently believed themselves to be supermen who were not bound by the laws that governed everyone else. The Stephen Dolginoff musical originally debuted in New York in 2003, subsequently being launched in a much bigger Off-Broadway production a few years later. The subject matter of the play doesn’t exactly lend itself to a big Broadway production, though productions have been launched numerous places all over the country.
The Theatrical Tendencies production features Maty L. McNamee as Richard Loeba brilliant man studying law at the University of Chicago in the early 1920’s. The play will be an interesting change of pace for McNamee, who most recently hit the stage of the Stackner Cabaret in a much lighter musicalthe feel-good ‘50’s and ‘60’s pop music revue Hula Hoop Sha-Boop. Relative newcomer Matthew Walton plays Loeb’s accomplice, Nathan Leopold.
Additional voice work for the show has been done by noted stage talents Jonathan West, Joel Kopischke, and John Cramer in pre-recorded sound bytes.
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Theatrical Tendencies’ production of Thrill Me runs September 17th through October 2nd at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center.
