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Nathan “Babe” Leopold and Richard Loeb are the main characters in “Thrill Me.”

For one night only you can see “Thrill Me,” an award-winning musical thriller, unlike any that you have ever seen, and enjoy another great social Gay & Lesbian Night @ The Spirit, Friday, November 13. 

This special Spirit of Broadway Theater event beings at 7:30 p.m. with a pre-show wine and cheese reception and the performance at 8:00 p.m. All seats, including the reception, are $35.

"Thrill Me,” based on a true story, this musical drama was written by the highly acclaimed young writer, Stephen Dolginoff.                                                                                                                                     

The story begins in 1958 at Joliet Prison, Illinois, where Nathan “Babe” Leopold faces the Parole Board for the fifth time. He tells them the facts of the “crime of the century” that sent him to prison thirty-five years earlier. But this time he reveals more than ever, hoping it will lead to his release.

In his memory, he goes back to 1924 Chicago, where, as a nineteen-year-old boy, he anxiously meets up with Richard Loeb, a classmate with whom he has shared friendship, sex and participation in minor crimes.                                            

The story has been treated in numerous adaptations: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” the book and movie “Compulsion” and Joshua Logan’s “Never The Sinner. But these adaptations focused on the trial and the crime, where Stephen Dolginoff’s “Thrill Me” goes behind closed doors and develops a hypothesis for why the two young men really committed the crime.                                                                                              

Dolginoff (book, music & lyrics) received New York Drama Desk Award nominations for Best Musical and Best Music Score; an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Off-Broadway Musical; and won an ASCAP Music Award for the New York production at the York Theatre Company.                                           

His first musical, “Beauty Sleep” was produced by New York University where he received a BFA in Dramatic Writing. His most recent musical “Panic,” is the story behind Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast.

If you can’t make it to Gay & Lesbian Night @ The Spirit on November 13, the musical plays through November 22.

For tickets, call the box office at 860.886.2378 or online at www.spiritofbroadway.com.

This handsome and comfortable theater is at 24 Chestnut Street in Downtown Norwich, CT.  Plenty of free parking.

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