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How Luigi Mangione led to the debut of an off-Broadway 'revenge' show
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Apr 13, 2025
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Photo by Scott Fetterman / courtesy Sparkplug Productions
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Apr 13, 2025
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“Fat Cat Killers,” a new off-Broadway comedy about two laid-off employees who kidnap their former CEO and attempt to spark a nationwide workplace uprising, opens later this month in NoHo.
Producer Christopher Lee, who also stars in the show, was reading the script last December when news broke that someone had shot and killed a health care CEO in Midtown. Luigi Mangione is accused of the crime and the federal government is seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.
“I had CNN on in the background, and it’s almost like the news feed was part of the play,” Lee said. “I was like, this play has to be done right now. There’s never gonna be a better time for an audience to sit down and follow this story.”
“Fat Cat Killers” was written more than 10 years ago, but Lee said the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson played a direct role in his decision to stage it now.
“I texted Adam [Szymkowicz, the playwright] and I was like ‘Do you see what’s on the news right now?’” Lee recalled. He sent the script to a director he was interested in working with, Adam Block, and they started pre-production a month later.
“Fat Cat Killers” is an off-Broadway play that has echoes of the highly publicized news events involving Luigi Mangione.
Lee’s company, Sparklug Productions, has used the Luigi Mangione connection in its marketing, such as in an April Fool’s Day Instagram post that purported to show Thompson’s alleged killer as a new member of the cast.
While the show doesn’t directly reference Mangione or the real-world shooting, it covers the same emotional terrain, Lee said – particularly the desperation of people who feel stuck in an unjust system.
“The play doesn’t support Luigi,” Lee said. “The play shows you how somebody could come to that same conclusion.”
While the play is a dark “revenge” comedy, Lee said it doesn’t glorify violence or make heroes out of its protagonists. “It’s making fun of the type of person who rationalizes, ‘This is what we have to do.’”
“He’s a murderer, we all know he’s a murderer,” Lee said of Mangione. “It seems like he had some mental problems going on and it’s sad. But he did something that made sense to him, and I think all of us across the country understood why it made sense to him, even if we know that’s not something you should do.”
“Fat Cat Killers” runs April 24 through May 17 at the Gene Frankel Theater. Tickets are around $38 and are available here.
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Ryan Kailath
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