For a long time, I’ve wanted to write a musical. It combines a lot of different things I do in a way I’ve never done before, and I felt it would be a good challenge.

After the success of my play Veronica Livingstone I Presume in spring, the company that put it on, Homegrown Theater, asked me to write a short script for a Halloween-themed puppet show the company would be putting on in October. Since it had to be a puppet show, it seemed as good an opportunity as any to write a musical. And since it had to be puppet-themed, I decided to find something Halloweeny and then just attach the words musical to it, kind of like the creators of South Park did with Cannibal: The Musical. But since it was both a puppet show and a musical, I wanted to go way over the top with it and make it as absurd and explicit as possible.

I settled on Ritual Murder: The Musical. The script and lyrics are about 2/3 done so far and so I started working on the music with the help of my friend Steven Palin of Bridgeport. This is a iPhone demo of the opening of the show that we made for the company to see what we were working on. It has the first song, which is sort of a medley of two characters songs and introduces the action of the show for the first scene.

As for what happens next, you’ll just have to show up to find out. The show will go for three days at Red Room in Boise around Halloween.