Before Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 psychological crime thriller, Rope, starring James Stewart and Farley Granger; before the chilling 1929 play of the same name, written by Patrick Hamilton; there was the real-life murder of a 14-year-old boy by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb in 1924. Dubbed “the crime of the century,” this heinous act was committed by the students in an effort to show their intellectual superiority and prove they could get away with the perfect crime. Fueled by the philosophy of Nietzsche, the two young men were brazen up until the moment they got caught. Now Staged Cinema Productions revisits Hamilton’s chilling play at Fullerton’s Maverick Theater. In Hamilton and Hitchcock’s version, two students strangle their classmate and hide his body inside an apartment, where they then invite over friends and family for a dinner party. Psychology and suspense collide in this thrilling production that examines the imperfections of crime.