Life Partners Cory Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson Discuss Their Indigo Girls Jukebox Musical 'Glitter & Doom'

Filmmaking partners Cory Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson – who are also longtime life partners, having been a couple for twenty-five years – made a splash with their 2008 first feature, "Were the World Mine," a gay musical in which Shakespeare, high school, and the pangs of young love collide thanks to a love potion.

Fifteen years on, with a string of gay indies to their credit to their credit ("Getting Go: The Go Doc Project," "Mariachi Gringo," the musical "Hello Again," based on the stage musical by Michael John Lachiusa), they're still mixing music and same-sex romance to create cinematic magic. Their latest, "Glitter & Doom," is a jukebox musical built entirely around the songs of the openly lesbian musical act Indigo Girls.

The movie centers on titular characters Glitter (Alex Diaz), a lighthearted young man trying to break away from his mother's (Ming-Na Wen) stifling expectations, and Doom (Alan Cammish), a musician with a goth/emo/rockabilly style who's looking to break into the recording industry. The film, which was shot during the COVID pandemic, takes place in Mexico City, but has a timeless, otherworldly feel that fits the film's fairytale sensibilities.

As they usually do, Krueckeberg wrote the screenplay, Gustafson directed, and they shared producing duties. The movie enchanted audiences as it made the rounds of last year's LGBTQ+ film festival circuit, generating the same of kind excitement that greeted "Getting Go" and "Were the World Mine," and taking pride of place with multiple Opening Night and Closing Night screenings.

Now "Glitter & Doom" has found its way to theaters thanks to distributor Music Box Films, where it is playing in limited release. (For a full list of theaters where the film is playing, follow this link. Also, look for the film's soundtrack, boasting 25 Indigo Girls songs in newly-reimagined versions, as well as a brand new single.)

Cory Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson caught EDGE up on what they've been doing lately, why they chose to make an Indigo Girls jukebox musical, and what it was like to cast this cameo-filled movie during the pandemic.

EDGE: Why a jukebox musical, and why the Indigo Girls?

Tom Gustafson: After "Hello Again" we started looking at other properties to option and adapt. As we started looking at some of the material, Cory and I were like, "Wait a minute, our own origin story is just as interesting as some of these properties that we're looking at." Then, for our 20th anniversary, he surprised me with this script of "Glitter & Doom." At the time it had placeholders of where the musical numbers would be, and what kind of the purpose the music would serve, but no real specific artists. We didn't know if it was gonna be original music or existing music.

Cory Krueckeberg: If we were going to do jukebox for us, it would be most meaningful if we could choose music from the time that we met in 1998 that would tell the story. But then, very quickly, everybody's like, "You can't try to get the rights to 20 different musicians' music, you will be making this movie for the rest of your life."

Indigo Girls were always a huge part of our relationship. I've always loved them. They were one of the first charting artists to be completely out of the closet from the beginning. It was just like, "We're lesbians. Get over it. We sing about women." And that always really inspired me.

EDGE: The film is supposedly set in Mexico City, but everyone speaks English, and Doom sounds British. It feels like this is somewhere outside of place and time.

Tom Gustafson: Yeah, and that's totally what we wanted. That was the goal, to create this kind of everywhere, anywhere place. We do a mash up of technology that sometimes isn't very realistic, but we [wanted] to give that kind of fairy tale feel.