Inside the unsavory, unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson musical with Broadway in its sights

This Tuesday, San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse begins performances of “The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical.” Yes, you read that right. The musical, which spans Thompson’s childhood in Kentucky to his death in Colorado, tracks the creation of his mythologized image through his best-known works — “Hell’s Angels,” “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72” — and how his fame impacted the characters of his life: his first wife, Sandra Conklin; his Rolling Stone editor, Jann Wenner; his nemesis, President Richard Nixon; and his close friends, illustrator Ralph Steadman and civil rights activist Oscar “Zeta” Acosta. The show honors these key figures, even as Hunter dishonors them.” Take the musical’s notable treatment of Acosta, whom Thompson famously maligned by obscuring his background in the 1971 novel “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” George Salazar portrays Oscar “Zeta” Acosta Fierro in “The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” at the La Jolla Playhouse. And so it just makes sense that a piece about him would do the same thing.” George Salazar, Joe Iconis and Gabriel Ebert of “The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical.” To chart Thompson’s penchant for psychedelia, Ebert — donning the iconic bucket hat, aviator sunglasses and cigarette holder — is experimenting with “bolder physicality that’s more luxurious and bendy” when Thompson is younger, and then depicting the corporal effects of his legendary drug and alcohol use as he aged.