A cast made up mostly of teenagers is about to open a musical that pokes at one of America's most profitable media obsessions: true crime. Ignite Theatre Company's world premiere of “The Big Bad Business of Murder” runs Thursday through Sunday, August 20-23, at the Robert G. Reim Theater in Kirkwood, following a Texas Ranger who convinces a criminal to falsely confess to being history's most prolific serial killer.
The show, created by Jonathan Anders and Jørgen Pedersen, is described by St. Louis Magazine as skewering the world of true crime and the industry's attempts to profit from tragedy. It is billed as the first musical from the pair, who have previously worked together on television and film projects, and the story unfolds through a hybrid cast that is primarily young actors, ages 13 and up, alongside a handful of adults. The plot's premise — a lawman and a fabulist criminal manufacturing a serial killer body count — closely tracks the real 1980s scandal surrounding Henry Lee Lucas, who falsely confessed to roughly 600 unsolved murders to Texas Rangers before journalists and a Texas Attorney General investigation exposed the claims as a hoax, according to Wikipedia.
Set in the fictional town of Armadillo, Texas, the musical follows a lawman with delusions of grandeur who conspires with a hapless loner to fabricate the killing spree, according to an official February project announcement from Ignite Theatre Company. The story's cast of characters, per St. Louis Magazine, includes a victim's sister, a celebrity psychologist, a movie producer, and the mayor of the small Texas town — a lineup built to satirize every angle of a media machine that turns tragedy into content.
A Score Built by a Red Bull Records Songwriter
The production contains 100 percent new material, including 22 original songs co-created by sad alex, the stage name of Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Alex Saad. Saad is signed to Red Bull Records and has written songs for artists including Kelly Rowland, Jordin Sparks, NIKI, and Rich Brian, according to AllMusic. Pedersen described the resulting score as funny, meaningful, and possessing an unusual musical-theater sound, per St. Louis Magazine's reporting.
Pedersen told the outlet that the idea for the show grew out of Anders watching true crime documentaries and taking issue with how they handled both killers and victims. That critique lands at a moment when the genre commands an enormous national audience — a September 2024 report by Edison Research and audiochuck found that 42% of Americans age 13 and older, an estimated 119 million people, listen to true crime podcasts, making it the third most popular podcast genre in the country. A separate 2023 Pew Research Center study found that roughly 34% of U.S. adult podcast listeners regularly tune into true crime content, with women almost twice as likely as men to be regular listeners.
Longer Rehearsals, Late Rewrites
The cast, crew, and creative team started rehearsals in May, and the production team used that time to make final tweaks to the story and scenes as the show came together. Pedersen said rehearsals ran longer than most Ignite productions, reflecting the work of shaping a brand-new script and score rather than staging an established title.
Pedersen said he hopes the musical prompts audiences to think differently about true crime, a goal that lines up with shifting audience appetite: a 2024 Edison Research report found that 77% of true crime podcast listeners express greater interest in the genre when it is victim-centered rather than sensationalized. Beyond the Reim Theater run, the show's creators plan to pursue licensing and professional opportunities for the musical.
A Youth Company Betting on Original Work
Ignite Theatre Company was founded in 2015 as a St. Louis nonprofit dedicated to inclusive performing arts education and production opportunities for youth, according to its organizational profile. Pedersen made his youth-musical directorial debut with the company in 2019, directing an all-female cast production of “Chicago (High School Edition),” and he has since directed Ignite's youth theater productions of “Grease” and “Hairspray” in addition to “Chicago.”
The premiere arrives as St. Louis-area arts organizations navigate a shakier funding landscape. Earlier this year, city and county officials debated reallocating hotel-tax revenues away from Regional Arts Commission grants and toward sports and tourism subsidies, a fight Hoodline detailed in its report on St. Louis arts funding pressures. Against that backdrop, a youth-driven nonprofit staging an ambitious, fully original musical — complete with a professionally credentialed songwriter — stands out as a bet on new work rather than a safer, already-known title.
“The Big Bad Business of Murder” performs August 20-23 at the Robert G. Reim Theater, located at 111 S. Geyer Road inside the Kirkwood Community Center, a 378-seat proscenium venue.
