Review: Alliance’s world premiere ‘Like Father’ is polished, timely, with a rich score

As if being 17 isn’t hard enough, Chris Grady, the central character of the new musical Like Father, is adjusting to her new family, home and city, plus the pressure of attending high school for the first time after a life of home school. Oh, and there’s the small wrinkle of finding out her father might be a serial killer who murdered 23 young men and hid their bodies. 

Running through November 15 on the Alliance’s Hertz Stage, Like Father is an ambitious, largely successful new production that aims high and achieves almost everything it sets out to do. Former Atlantan and Suzi Bass Award-winner Jacob Ryan Smith created the show and wrote the lyrics, book and music with Caroline Pernick. 

The musical opens when Chris (Sophie Pollono) is out for a drive with her dad, John (Billy Harrigan Tighe), and the two are pulled over by the cops. John is taken into custody, pleading with his daughter not to believe what she might hear. Chris winds up living with her estranged mother, Michelle (Hannah Elless) and Michelle’s boyfriend, Ben (Benjamin H. Moore) in Dahlonega, Georgia. 

Next-door neighbor Trevor (Frankie Rodriguez), a gay teenager, meets Chris not long after she has relocated, and the two become friends, bonding over being outsiders and dealing with loss. Rodriguez and Pollono work especially well together. 

The other major character is Lillian Clarke (Charity Angel Dawson), a British podcaster who runs the wildly popular true crime show Bloody Good. Her listeners revere her, and one night Chris calls and leaves a message, looking for answers. Lillian starts sleuthing, and she soon broadcasts what she has uncovered to Chris and the rest of her listeners.

Pollono, seen in TV roles such as The Young and the Restless and Fast Layne, is a realistic Chris. It’s a plum role, and she dives into it with a flawless performance. Despite what Chris has heard, she still loves her father and has a hard time believing what he did.  

For Elless’ Michelle, it’s never fully clear why she and John have split, whether she was too young for a family or knew more about her husband than she wanted to. She’s a woman who wants what is best for her daughter and recognizes the difficult journey she’s on. It’s beautiful work by Elless, who recently appeared in the Broadway revival of Godspell. Dawson, Rodriguez and Moore also excel in their complex roles.

Like Father won the Open Jar Musical Shark Tank and was a semi-finalist at the Eugene O’Neill New Music Theater Festival. It’s been in development for more than four years, and the care put into it is evident. With the world’s ongoing obsession with true crime, the musical feels timely, yet it’s ultimately a show about family bonds: the betrayal Chris feels versus her love for someone who perhaps has committed horrible acts. 

The folk-pop score is rich and never feels padded. Of particular note is the glitzy “The Family Profession,” a dream sequence opening the second act where Lillian envisions John inviting his daughter into his bloody world. Chris and Trevor lead “Different Body,” in which the two long for an escape and solutions to what they are facing. Elless has some terrific solos, including “Easy Loving.” And Pollono’s closing “Landscapes” is particularly strong. 

Technically Like Father is full of superior work, from the lighting design of Thom Weaver and the nifty projection work by Caite Hevner (using onstage imagery to heighten the mood and tension) to Luciana’s Stecconi’s set design. The orchestra — conductor Adam Beskind, Patrick Arthur, Geoff Gill, Yinzi Kong, Kenneth Lambert and Marc Miller — also deserves recognition. 

Having said all this, there are some small flaws. Smith and Pernick’s book never fully brings John to life. That might make sense as he is a character no one really knows — not even his wife or daughter — but still, he could use a few more dimensions. And with a first act that readily embraces tonal changes, smoothly executed by Co-artistic Director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, the second act seems a bit more straightforward, not quite as unpredictable or edgy. 

Still, Like Father is as thrilling a world premiere as any I’ve seen in Atlanta in many years — complicated, unafraid to take some dangerous turns and emotionally shattering. It’s a long show at roughly 150 minutes, but it never feels overdone. Once word of mouth gets out about this production, it’s likely to be one of the hottest tickets of the fall theater season.

Where and When 

The world premiere of Like Father is at the Alliance Theatre on the Hertz Stage through November 15. Tickets start around $65 and depend on show times. 1280 Peachtree St. NE.

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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband Craig.