It was an opportunity straight out of the movies when Stephen Dolginoff, the writer/composer of the multi award-winning international stage musical cult-hit
Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story
, signed an agreement with a Hollywood producer to write the screenplay for a proposed feature film version. The film never moved forward, but after recounting the entire experience in his memoir
Thrill Maker
, he received requests from all around the world to read it. So Stephen finally decided it was time for the fans of the musical to get their hands on his unique, unexpected concept for
Thrill Me
on the big screen. As a writer, Stephen found the experience to be rewarding, yet extremely challenging. The biggest hallmark of the stage version of
-and perhaps the trickiest obstacle to overcome-was that it has only two characters: Leopold & Loeb themselves. Somehow keeping the spirit of that theatrical conceit intact for the movie-which obviously would need a bigger cast-was his major goal. Since anyone could write a screenplay about these real-life "thrill killers" from 1920s Chicago, Stephen believed that this version still had to feel like his original take on the story. It had to retain most of the major qualities from the stage show while still clearly embodying the requirements of a movie. It was quite a puzzle, but eventually he was very confident that he solved it! So how closely does
Thrill Me: The Screenplay
follow
Thrill Me-
the musical? How much does it differ? How did Stephen open it up, expand it, and make it more visual and cinematic? Did he have to write new versions of the songs? Did he create new dialogue? To find out, just whisper to yourself "Lights! Camera! Action!"-and then read
Thrill Me: The Screenplay.