Ryan Scott Oliver doesn’t create standard musical-theater fare — far from it.

As Oliver himself says, “I’m a fan of a dark tale that ends happily and is a journey from darkness into the light.”

How dark? Well, the two creative people who have inspired Oliver the most in terms of the tone, attitude and the world of his plays are filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and author Stephen King.

Oliver says of Tarantino, “I’m always compelled by the power dynamics of his piece. I feel the use of violence is always with a point and is always meant to create a heightened American experience.”

As for King, he says, “One thing I really love about him is he’s the master of horror, (but) he is also someone who really does have his heart in the right place and really does believe in justice and really does believe that the hero does win, sometimes with sacrifice.”

Oliver is coming to Goodspeed Musicals’ Festival of New Musicals in East Haddam this weekend, where his musical “We Foxes” will get a public reading on Friday.

This is Oliver’s third time at Goodspeed. It follows two stints at The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed, where he worked on “We Foxes,” “Rope” and “Jasper in Deadland.”

The latter ended up running Off-Broadway last year, prompting an Entertainment Weekly critic to write, “When theater pundits talk about the future of Broadway and the new generation of composers, they’re talking about artists like Ryan Scott Oliver ... (‘Jasper’ is) an electrifying surge of theatrical energy that has the potential to wake up New York from its deep creative sleep.”

“Jasper,” whose book Oliver co-wrote with Hunter Foster, echoes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice but with a 16-year-old traveling to the afterlife to save his best friend.

Oliver sees “We Foxes” as a turning point in his career, in that he created something that is wholly him.

“As a writer, you’re constantly pitching for someone else’s project or you’re trying to vie for the commercial, easy property,” he says.

Or a writer hopes that a project comes along that aligns with his or her particular talents.

“You just have to stop waiting for that and you have to create it for yourself, so I did just that,” he says.

With “We Foxes,” Oliver called upon the things that he thinks he does well. That includes his interest in darkness-to-light tales, as he has said, but also his strong sense as a composer of how to write something sung-through. He excels at creating works that are mildly operatic, not in terms of vocal quality but in terms of scope, and that have a popular edge when necessary.

Which brings us to “We Foxes.” He started working on it via a commission from Broadway Across America; the commission was for writers to do their dream projects, to develop something that they didn’t think anyone else would let them write.

The plot of this southern Gothic thriller is inspired by a story Oliver’s mother told him about someone she knew in the 1940s. In the musical version, set in Missouri, a young orphan named Willa is adopted by a seemingly hospitable sheriff’s wife named Vesta Quimby. Willa discovers secrets in the house.

“That begets a rather vicious war between her and Vesta. It’s a fight for survival,” Oliver says. “There’s a ton of animal imagery in the play, and it really is about the predator and the prey in the jungle — or in the woods, I should say. How does the prey escape the predator and ultimately destroy the predator?”

He notes, though, that there’s a tremendous amount of justice in the story and a happy ending.

“When you see a lion cutting down a gazelle, it’s pretty sad, for us humans when we’re watching it, but the lion is doing what the lion has to do to survive. I try to really make that case for the quote-unquote villains of the play. The villains do bad things, but I try to help the audience understand that maybe if they were in the villain’s shoes, they might be forced to make that same decision,” he says.

Vesta comes from a rough-and-tumble background not unlike Willa’s. But Vesta has elevated herself to a beloved position in society. She believes she was destined for greatness — to be a lion. She looks at people around her and believes they were destined to be beneath her. She initially thinks that she can groom Willa to be like her. Eventually, she learns that Willa isn’t an ally — she’s a threat.

He notes, “The problem, especially for musical theater, is when you get into horror, and you get into terror and theater, let alone musical theater, is it can devolve into camp. So when you start having people killing people onstage, it can read very poorly, so finding the right balance is key.”

“We Foxes” is part of a trilogy, with another piece, “Rope,” getting its first reading a month ago.

“It’s the kind of work that, good or bad, if I die tomorrow, I’ll know I’ve made something. And that has nothing to do with accolades,” he says. “That’s got everything to do with I created a piece that I am proud of, that I think has taste and a narrative that will speak to an audience in the way that it speaks to me and music that will stay with an audience in the way that I hoped it would. I know so many of us writers are trying to do that, and this is just the way I’m trying to do it.”

Schedule for the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals

Tickets are $25 each for one show ($15 for students).

Festival packages are $80 and $119.

Admission to the Saturday symposium "Elevator Pitch Challenge" is free and open to the public.

For more information, call (860) 863-8668 or visit goodspeed.org.

FRIDAY

• "We Foxes," 7:30 p.m., Goodspeed Opera House

Book, music and lyrics by Ryan Scott Oliver

Festival Cabaret, 10 p.m., Gelston House

SATURDAY

• Seminars, 10 a.m.-12:45 p.m., Gelston House

"Spotlight On: Alfred Uhry" with Pulitzer, Oscar and Tony winner Alfred Uhry; "Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway," with New York Times theater columnist and author Michael Riedel; "How Do They Do That?," with the writers of Broadway's "First Date," Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary; "Selling the Show 101," with Broadway press agent Rick Miramontez; "Orchestrating 101," with Goodspeed orchestrator Dan DeLange; and "And 5, 6, 7, 8!," with theater historian John Pike.

• New Musical Preview, 2:30-3:30 p.m., Goodspeed Opera House

Preview of a new musical planned for Goodspeed in 2016.

• Symposium, 4 p.m., Goodspeed Opera House

"Elevator Pitch Challenge: The Writer's Audition"

• "Milo at the Movies," 7:30 p.m., Goodspeed Opera House

Book by Tom Diggs, music and lyrics by Mark Gaylord

Milo and Dexter thought they'd make a killing in vaudeville, but, after silent movies arrive, Milo's gumption lands the duo an unexpected gig.

• Festival Cabaret, 10 p.m., Gelston House

SUNDAY

• "Only Anne," 1 p.m., Goodspeed Opera House

Book and lyrics by John Dietrich

Music by Will Buck

An update of Jane Austen's novel "Persuasion," set in 1920s Britain at dawn of the Jazz Age.

• Meet the Writers Reception, 3:30 p.m., Gelston House