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Steven Sater and James Bourne have made a concept album of their new musical “Murder At The Gates.” In advance of the album’s release on July 1, 2026, the creators are debuting a song, “Fuckin’ Scream” that features
vocals from “Stranger Things” star Gaten Matarazzo.
Sater is the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning creator of “Spring Awakening.” He wrote the book and lyrics for “Murder at the Gates.” Bourne is a chart-topping, multi-Platinum musician who has a solo career and was co-founder of the bands Busted and Son of Dork. He will handle the music, production and songwriting for “Murder at the Gates.”
The show is more than a decade in the making, and is a black-comic murder mystery set in a Gen-Z, gated-community America. It’s a dark and stormy night and Cameron is having her birthday. To her horror, her dad is throwing her a party to help her get over the worst year ever — the sudden death of her mother and a gruesome break-up from her soul-mate, the poet-rebel Ethan. All of Cam’s supposed friends arrive in costume. It’s all going splendidly, until the party “murder” occurs. And somehow, it’s real. Someone’s dead. And the security system has locked down.
Sater says, “Back in the day, when I was first conceiving ‘Spring Awakening’, I was urged to update the story to contemporary times. As I suspected, that didn’t work. But that energy spilled into ‘Murder at the Gates,’ a black comic look at how totally effed life can be as a young person today.”
Bourne adds, “Unfortunately, my illness prevented me from touring last summer, but it allowed me to complete this project of my dreams, ‘Murder at the Gates.’”
In addition to Matarazzo, “Murder At The Gates” features Milo Manheim (Disney’s “Zombies” series); Isa Briones (“The Pitt”); Joy Woods (a Tony and Grammy nominee for “Gypsy”); Helen J Shen (“Maybe Happy Endin”); Mason Alexander Park (“Cabaret”); Casey Likes (“Back To The Future: The Musical”); and Ramin Karimloo (“Les Misérables”).
An early version of “Murder At The Gates” previously played at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2013 before two rehearsed readings at The Other Palace, London, in 2019 and more recently, a workshop with Madison Wells Media in NYC in 2024.
Murder At The Gates tracklist:
1. ‘Something That’s Sure’ – with Isa Briones
2. ‘The Mirror Sighs’ – with Milo Manheim and Isa Briones
3. ‘A Fine Rigor Mortis’ – with Milo Manheim featuring Mason Alexander Park
4. ‘Love, Cream, & Sugar’ – with Joy Woods
5. ‘Our Country Bleeds’ – with Gaten Matarazzo and Casey Likes
6. ‘Lady Fingers’ – with Helen J Shen
7. ‘Mortified’ – with Milo Manheim
8. ‘Put Another Love to Bed’ – with Mason Alexander Park
9. ‘It’s Nothing’ – with Ramin Karimloo and Milo Manheim
10. ‘Girl Went Down’ – with Joy Woods
11. ‘Cameron the Lonely’ – with Isa Briones
12. ‘Fuckin’ Scream’ – with Gaten Matarazzo
13. ‘No One Sits On High’ – with Isa Briones
