EAST LANSING - The Wharton Center for Performing Arts has hosted a variety of captivating and historical themed plays and musicals.

This month, the Wharton Center will be hosting the play "Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story"; which tells a tale of a crime story involving two young men living in the 1920's.

On Wednesday, January 22nd, the Wharton Center invited the media to an open studio rehearsal from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm.

Bert Goldstein, the Director of Leopold & Loeb, spoke about how the psychological thriller can bring emotional twists and an element of eeriness to viewers.

"One of the most fascinating things about the play is not only the retelling of this story, which was the crime of the century at the time, is Steven Dolginoff's music that he sets to it which is very eerie, dark, mysterious, so it really invokes the kind of psychological thriller that we are targeting the play to be, which makes it really fascinating."

Actors Wayne Shuker and Mark Ryan Anderson will be playing Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold respectively. For Shuker, this was his first time working with Anderson and Goldstein, and has enjoyed every moment of it.

"These people are great, Bert is a great director, he gives us so much freedom to play, and this show really needs it," said Shuker. "Especially now there is two of us in this cast, it's really great to work with Mark, and build a rapport with him, and spend time really digging into this material."

"The cool thing about this show is that it will span generations and this is a murder, a story that happened in the 20's, 1924. This has been a fascination with the American culture for 100 years. But we also have those people that listen to those podcasts like "My Favorite Murder" and "Hometown Killer", and all that stuff where the millenials and generations younger of today will love that stuff too. So this is kind of a play for everyone."

Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story will be showing at the Pasant Theatre in the Wharton Center.

Showtimes will be:
Wednesday, February 12th at 7:30 PM
Thursday, February 13th at 7:30 PM
Friday, February 14th at 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 16th at 1:30 PM