Plan-B printing 'Gutenberg' playbills

"GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!" through June 19, Park City's Egyptian Theatre, www.parkcityshows.com, running time: one hour, 35 minutes (one intermission)

When interviewing Plan-B Theatre Company's producing director Jerry Rapier about the revival of "Gutenberg! The Musical!" we jokingly tossed out words like "romp," "zany" and "madcap."

Turns out, all of those words are quite true, and then some.

Since Plan-B first produced the two-man musical in 2007, people have been requesting its return. And it's easy to see why: The show is loads of fun.

Doug Simon (Kirt Bateman) and Bud Davenport (Jay Perry) have written what they believe to be a Broadway-caliber musical. The premise: a musical about Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. Before their show can make it to the Great White Way, it needs to be seen by producers. In the theater world, that means a reading, which consists of a few actors presenting the material.

Doug and Bud play all the characters for this reading, and in order to help the audience (hopefully full of would-be producers) tell the difference, they wear different hats with the character's name written across the front.

Sounds simple enough, right? Between them, they play Gutenberg, the love interest Helvetica, the town drunk (or two), the evil Monk, even an anti-Semite. They plow through characters and hat changes with such gusto and energy; it's almost hard to keep up.

The show's success rests squarely on the fact that Bateman and Perry are beyond adorable. Their enthusiasm for "Gutenberg" is infectious, and their rapport with one another renders a wonderfully believable back-and-forth.

Beyond the charming, boyish naivete of the two, the script really is laugh-out-loud funny (who knew a roof "covered in dirty thatch" could be so funny?), and it's equally appealing for both theater enthusiasts and novices.

Don't miss this rib-tickling, laugh-a-minute caper; it's worth the drive up the canyon.

Sensitivity rating: One use of the F-word, a couple of pantomimed references to breasts.