By Scott Brown and Anthony King

In this award-winning and zany musical comedy, an enthusiastic pair of aspiring playwrights (Bud and Doug) performs a backers' audition for their new project - a big, splashy, overblown musical about printing press creator, Johann Gutenberg. In the tradition of such Hippodrome hits as A Tuna Christmas and The Big Bang, two actors play (and sing and dance) all of the characters at break-neck speed with barely enough time to change hats (literally). Just how ambitious is "Bud" and "Doug's" creation? Here's a peek at some of the hysterically (non)historic events:

The setting is the well-known (not!) town of Schlimmer, Germany where young Johann is a wine presser by trade. He is surrounded by poverty and illiteracy (one illiterate woman's baby dies because she mistook its medicine for a jar of jelly beans). Gutenberg's grape-stomping assistant - a buxom blonde named Helvetica - is also victim to the circumstances and longs to be able to read - read her boss, that is ("I can't read him/he's all Greek to me/but I still need him/like a grape that needs a squeeze").

In the midst of these medieval soap opera circumstances and an eclectic mix of musical styles, Gutenberg has an epiphany - why not turn his grape press into a printing press and save the citizens of Schlimmer from a life of illiteracy?

But history rarely goes that smoothly - and all producers at backers' auditions need to see conflict, right? So Bud and Doug get really creative:

Doug: You see, we realized - once Gutenberg invented the printing press, there was no more story.
Bud: So we destroyed it!
Doug: Now anything can happen!

And almost anything does! The playwrights-turned-actors pull out all the stops to bring the producers one heck of a musical, complete with a light saber duel straight out of Star Wars and an evil monk with a cat named Satan who will stop at nothing to prevent Gutenberg from sharing his creation. Fiction is obviously more fun than truth in this tour-de-force musical hit!

Will the evil Monk succeed? Will illiteracy rates drop in Schlimmer? Will Helvetica ever hook up with Johann? And - most importantly - will Bud and Doug's dreams of a Broadway production ever be realized? Come to GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! to find out.