For Jacob Ryan Smith, the idea for Like Father began with a deeply personal question: What happens when the person you trust most turns out to be someone you never knew?

That question is informed in a lot of ways by his own experiences. But there is one thing Smith wants to make sure is clear.

“I love my dad,” says Smith. “I’m very close with my dad. This does not come from my own trauma.”

Smith is the creator of Like Father. He, along with singer-songwriter, Caroline Pernick, wrote the book, music and lyrics for the musical which is informed by his relationship with his father. But not inspired by.

At the center of the story is a 17-year-old girl named Chris. After her father’s arrest, Chris moves in with her estranged mother, Michelle, and stepfather, Ben. When a popular true-crime podcast exposes the family’s disturbing past, the people at the center of the story must confront what brought them together—and what it might cost them to keep going.

One night, while watching a documentary about serial killer John Wayne Gacy with his father, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Smith heard Gacy’s daughter describe how her father’s arrest upended her young life. In the moment, he looked at his own father—a person he describes as a trusted authority figure, friend and confidant—and wondered: What would he do if he discovered that his father had been living a double life?

Immediately, he had an idea.

“That thought experiment led me down this road. What would that kind of betrayal feel like,” Smith asks. “And how would I hold the fact that I’m never gonna stop loving my dad? Kinda no matter what he does. One of the only reasons I could access this was because I’m so close with my dad. I could throw myself into the shoes of someone wondering what that kind of betrayal would feel like.”

As he explored more, Chris, the main character, was found. Then came the world building and somewhere along the way, the music. Well, actually, according to Smith, the music was much more immediate.

“The music really came first. I lead with music. I speak through music. I always walk through my own life with music in my head,” he says. “A musical is a fun little portal where I get to force other people to walk through the world the way I see it.”

Some people express and communicate through body language. Others express through words. Smith expresses and communicates through song.

“I’ve always known this to be my medium,” he says. “I always knew the true crime angle; the serial killer angle could be a great thesis. I mean, I come from a composing background. I have been a composer my whole life.”

In many of the classic musicals, when emotions are too big, people start to sing, said Smith.

“I think that’s why I’ve been disillusioned for a little while by a lot of big-scale musicals. Sometimes it feels like it’s all for entertainment purposes and not for that quintessential identifier for why our medium exists,” he says. “One of my professors in college used to talk about how lyric is information in a song, but music is emotion and feeling.”

As a 17-year-old, Chris has a lot of emotions.

“Half of the time we will be in high school, dealing with the issues of maturation and being 17 years old, not understanding your own body, or your relationships, or where you fit in your family. Those sorts of communal things that we’ve all dealt with at one point or another as we’ve gotten older,” Smith says. “And then in the next blink of an eye, suddenly we’ll be dealing with horror, ghosts, haunting, irreverent trauma. The show is trying to take the individualized insecurity we’ve all felt as we’ve sort of inherited the world our parents have left behind for us.”

And pair it with the betrayal of all betrayals. For most teens, at some point there is a feeling of betrayal. But in Like Father, what if that betrayal is pushed to the extreme of all extremes – your father has done something truly unforgivable?

And it’s all wrapped up in an emotional thrill ride mixed with what Smith describes as classic principles of a thriller movie, a suspense film, and a horror film, merged with your classic teenage coming-of-age comedy.

What began as an idea back in 2020, has grown into a full-fledged possibility. Premiering Like Father at the Alliance on the Hertz Stage is both a professional milestone and personal for Smith.

As a native of Atlanta, the Alliance is one of the places that helped shape his understanding of theater. And he’s always seen the Hertz Stage as a place where adventurous work happened—where theater could push boundaries and take risks.

“Premiering Like Father on the Hertz Stage is a dream becoming reality,” he says. “It is the most important thing to me.”

Performances of Like Father run on the Hertz Stage October 8 through November 15, 2026 – learn more.