Readings and Workshops
Luigi Mangioni Musical to Get NYC Reading
Initially set as a one-night-only event, the satire about the alleged killer has added two dates due to demand.
March 05, 2026 By Diep Tran
Luigi Mangione is coming to New York. Well, the musical based on him, at least. Luigi: The Musical, a satire inspired by the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will get a staged reading in New York City at The Green Room 42 June 15–18. Initially a one-night-only event, two more dates have been added due to demand.
The cast will be announced at a later date.
This follows a sold-out run last year in San Francisco, where the musical garnered national attention, including a New York Times review that said, "If you’re at all familiar with the contentious online discourse about Mr. Mangione, here you’ll find it poured into a body to dance across the jailhouse floor, tapping around the basic moral questions posed by his celebrity." The musical was also performed last year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Luigi is created by Nova Bradford; with music by Arielle Johnson; lyrics by Johnson and Bradford; and book by Bradford, Johnson, Andre Margatini, and Caleb Zeringue. It was inspired by the real incident where Mangioni, Sean Combs, and Sam Bankman-Fried were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn at the same time—Combs is currently imprisoned on allegations of sexual misconduct, and Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.
"Luigi: the Musical uses comedy to bring deeper questions to the surface," said Bradford in a statement. "Why did this case garner the reaction that it did? And what happens when people stop trusting their institutions?"
According to press notes: "Luigi: the Musical doesn't glorify violence, it interrogates it. Beneath the absurdity and punchlines ... lies a serious critique of how violence is packaged and consumed in American media."
This isn't the first time that real-life killers have been portrayed in musical theatre—after all, Stephen Sondheim wrote an entire musical about historical presidential assassins, and the story of outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow was also turned into a Broadway show.
But it is rarer for a musical to dramatize events that are still currently ongoing. Federal prosecutors initially sought the death penalty for Mangioni, which has been dismissed. Mangioni currently faces state and federal charges, including for second-degree murder and stalking, which comes with the possibility of life in prison; he's pleaded not guilty.
Visit LuigiTheMusical.info.
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