Vertigo Theatre Productions announce 'Something Sinister'

Vertigo Theatre Productions are pleased to announce their next production, a modern day re telling of the Leopold and Loeb murders called 'Something Sinister'

Story
The story tells the story of 2 wealthy and highly intelligent 22 year old boys who on the night of their friends leaving party decide to kill a friend....why, to simply see if they could get away with it. The boys feel that because of their social stature and feeling of entitlement that they live above the law and should be allowed to kill. Once the murder is done the 2 dispose of the body in a gruesome manner before heading to the party. As the guests arrive the victims core group of friends receive and a text informing them that David (the victim) has been kidnapped at that the kidnappers demand money from the group. However what follows is a twisted game of cat and mouse as the group begin to question the boys and each other especially since one of the killers is pushing them to the extreme. Itâ??s only a matter of a time before the gruesome murder is figured out, but when it is all hell will break lose.

'Something Sinster' is an original thriller based on one of the most twisted crimes in american history with a modern day spin. It's not the 1st time the Leopold and Loeb murders have been used as inspiration for art. Patrick Hamiltons stage play 'Rope'and the later film version as well as the movie Murder By Numbers amongst others also took inspiration, however never quite as twisted as 'Something Sinister'

Written By Craig Hepworth
Directed By Craig Hepworth and Adele Stanhope

'Something Sinister' opens April 27th at Taurus Bar, Canal Street, Manchester and runs through May 1st

Tickets on sale from January 25th 2010

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Updated On: 1/26/10 at 12:50 PM

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Updated On: 1/26/10 at 08:05 PM

What I can't understand is how you can take someone else's work, retitle it, rewrite it and pass it of as your own. Do you pay Patrick Hamilton estate royalties? What about copyrights?

Updated On: 1/21/10 at 01:15 AM

thanks Bob

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Updated On: 1/26/10 at 09:09 AM

Still I would have thought that if you are doing an 'update' and 'based on a concept by'
situation the first thing you would need to do would be to get a clearance from the original rights holder (Dial M For Murder) irrespective of whether you are playing in a 20 seat venue or 500 hundred seat venue. Alternatively at this point you could just remove the "concept by Patrick Hamilton" credit, otherwise as long as the name is there I think you will find you are liable to pay a royalty to the Hamilton estate.

Updated On: 1/23/10 at 08:32 PM

I would imagine you would have to pay Hamiltons estate for this too.

But, out of interest, what was the point of updating it? What did you want to get out of it the original play didn't have? Or develop further? Why would that be a better move than staging the original. The plot seems to be the same, the characters very close, some of the names (Brandon, Cadell), the homosexual themes, the murder, the body, the party... at the moment it sounds identical to Hamiltons play?

The show's playing the Taurus bar on Canal Street, right?

I would venture that it's a simple matter of sexing it up for the audience. The production of Rope playing the Almeida at the moment is very traditional and suits the London theatre going audience, but by playing the whole thing younger and ramping up the sexual themes and thriller-y nature for a show in the middle of Manchester's gay community you're more likely to get the punters in.

You SHOULD be paying royalties, really, for any significant part of the original Hamilton narrative in use (I think under the IPO's definition of "significant part" Something Sinister's borrowing of the main plot conceit would qualify), but I suspect that Samuel French will either never hear about it or not give a monkey's.

Thanks for the response. Forgive me for being confused, you see before I emailed I'd only just read the interview on Whatsonstage about Something Sinister which contains the line:

"Well, the narrative of Rope (which Something Sinister is based on) is very much intact."

Which would imply a rights issue!

I'm sorry if you feel I was being homophobic. It just seems that Taurus prides itself (pun unintended) on its representation of the LGBT community, and it's in a prime catchment area for a young, trendy gay audience who would be likely to enjoy a show with gay themes (although obviously you do all your shows there).

I admit to extrapolating from your interview comment of "What our version does is set it in a contemporary setting and explore new sides of the protagonists, from their sexuality, motives, state of mind etc." that you were thinking of sexing up the story. That's what people tend to do when they take a story and make it so it's about rich young people - Cruel Intentions etc. was what I was thinking of. "Sexing up" doesn't just have to mean putting sex in - it's about making it more glamorous, more flashy, more showy. I'd consider what you did with "M" to be almost identical. You can sex up a document on war by claiming there's WMDs to deploy in 45 minutes, after all... but I apologise for being rather cruder than I meant to be.

Anyway, that's all by the by. Lord knows I wish I had the guts to write and/or produce anything. Best of luck to you.

Leopold & Loeb never killed a "friend" and then had a dinner party with his body in a trunk. That is 100% the invention of Mr. Hamilton. Their true story is vastly different. And regardless of what you say, you have clearly adapted Mr. Hamilton's copyrighted work, which is not legal. You have been reported to Samuel French Ltd, who controls the rights to ROPE on behalf of Mr. Hamilton's estate. They have all of your performance/theatre details as well as the synopsis you provided on this board.

oh PS
I look forward to hearing from Samuel French so they can see the script for themselves and see that nothing is wrong, especially since the only link was a party and a body in the trunk and thats now gone

broadwayfan4ever i guess some people have to much time on their hands, maybe if you had read the script 1st or seen the production you could have made an informed opinion.

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Updated On: 1/26/10 at 09:23 AM

Ive deleted anything which had the now wrong storyline since we have changed it, is that OJK withn you Alterego?
I have to say im shocked at you, you have always been some one ive had respect for any here ever since i was SADM2 and you have created nothing but completly unnesceccery drama over a script you have not read or a play you have not seen. Taking the body in the trunk moment out of Something Sinister tokk us all of 5 mins and had zero impact on the script so that should tell you how little it had to do with Rope in the 1st place.
I explained to you numerous times about the fact this play was a tip of the hat to Rope rather than an updae of Rope and have also told you the marketing team here at Vertigo stupidly billed it with Hamiltons name on to give him a bit of credit for that one idea and STILL you have carried on like a dog with a bone.

Its imature (the cast and crew here were shown your posts today and were shocked) since all you have done is create drama without listening for a bunch of people who work hard all year round and put in a nod to another play in our play about the L and L murders.

As i say removing it took all of 5 mins since our play *im revealing spoilers here just to try and shut you up* has the party guests wake up after been drugged by the killer and it has the 2 boys manipulate the guests in to thinking that they have done the murder during the missing hours they dont remember whilst they were drugged. The body in the Trunk was discovered straight away at the begining as all the guests are been framed for his murder by the boys who are playing mind games and wanting to get away with the perfect murder.

The party is also in a hotel where links to the hotel are also made.

Of course all we could say originaly was a party was been thrown and a body stuffed in a trunk by 2 boys for the guests to discover as the boys play min games with them all night as we did not want to reveal any of our story....but i guess that dont matter now since because of you and some other idiots who have passed judgement on something they have no idea about we have had to give away our plot etc which is something a company has worked damn hard on.

So yes Alterego and the others on here
There was a party - At a hotel which was not where the crime was commited and was also not written as 'when will they discover the body' like Rope as our body is laid out straight away for all the players to see.

Yes there was a trunk - Which was used to transport the body from an Aaprtment whwre the murder took place to the Hotel where the party is in full swing and the drugging will happen.

Yes some of our players had similar names to Rope -m This was done as a fun nod to the original, if you actually bothered to read the charachters you would see that a drug dealer, a party girl, a flmaboyent gay guy, a virgin girl etc did not bare any resemblences to the ones from Rope. The 2 lead boys who are the killers were real people who Hamilton turned in to fiction.

As i said the only mistake made on thi show was the marketing which wanted to mention Hamilton and Rope as (A) A Nice gesture since we are doing a story based on the same sorce material as Rope, and (B) ouir marketing team thought it would be good for publicity (something i may say i was against as the play was/is very much an original thriller)

So there you go Alterego, you can rest easy now in knowing that your pathetic insults aned attacks on here have led to us having to reveal the twists etc for a play that even the cast and crew have had to keep to themselves since we went in to production.

In future instead of forming an opinion on something you have read a few posts about on a messege board try waiting till you have seen or heard reviews etc to make your opinion vallid

We here at Vertigo inc all the cast and crew thank you

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Alterego you have pushed and pushed, we answerd your questions and you have still pushed or acted like a little child

"There is a posting missing here from Dantes. Where did it go? "

If you ask questions then try listening to the answers.

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