[title of show] at New Village Arts leans into its premise with delight: a musical about writing a musical, performed with a wink, a nod, and more inside jokes than a cast party at midnight. With its talented cast, it’s charming, heartfelt, and strangely profound about the terrifying business of putting your creative heart out into the world.

The plot, such as it is, kicks off when Jeff (Tommy Tran) and Hunter (Caleb Wohlgemuth) decide to submit something to the New York Musical Theatre Festival. The problem is that they don’t have a script, and the deadline is three weeks away. Their solution: write about the very fact that they don’t have a script. They rope in their friends Heidi (Kylie Young) and Susan (Becca Myers), both willing to embrace this creative challenge, and together they write a show that folds in their doubts, their ambitions, their fights, and their hope that maybe, just maybe, this half-baked idea could land them in Broadway lights. We can’t forget Larry (Nathan Waits, also the stage manager), whose presence is there but only heard when the script says the union allows him.

The cast of [title of show] Photo Credit: Dupla Photography/Jason Sullivan

Tran’s Jeff is practical, focused, and funny as the one trying to herd the cats of Hunter’s stream of ideas. Wohlgemuth’s Hunter counters with an eager, slightly manic energy; his “let’s just do it” is a bit chaotic, but always keeps momentum. They complement each other well, both performance-wise and vocally, and set up the show nicely with their duet ‘Two Nobodies In New York.”

Young’s Heidi has strong vocals, which are key to grounding the production in moments when it feels like it might float away on meta-jokes. Her “A Way Back Then” is tenderly sung as a wistful pause in all of the zaniness. Myers is very funny, as the quirky and talented Susan. Her reactions and matter-of-fact delivery make her the unappointed truth-teller of the group. “Montage Part 2: Secondary Characters” lets Myers and Young revel in the joys of being scene-stealers, complete with the immortal reminder that sometimes “the secondary characters are singing a song.”

The score is equally self-referential as the plot, and the cleverness shines in songs that parody while still standing on their own. Susan’s “Die, Vampire, Die” is both a pep talk and an exorcism of doubt for anyone who’s ever been haunted by their inner critic. “Change It, Don’t Change It” shows the building awkwardness and tension between the cast and about the show's future.

The show works best when it remembers that the audience is in on the joke. Director Desireé Clarke Miller smartly lets those moments breathe without rushing, trusting that the audience doesn’t need all the jokes to land to appreciate it all.

Kevin “Blax” Burroughs’ choreography channels that creative energy feel, while Erin Vanderhyde Gross’s music direction keeps the harmonies tight and the pacing crisp. Evan Eason’s sound design keeps everything in harmony, balancing the zing of the musical numbers with the clarity of the dialogue so no laugh or lyric gets lost.

Scenic design by Atria Pirouzmand and Ali Roustaei turns the stage into a playground for creativity, part rehearsal room, part office, with chalkboards and corkboards littered with Post-its that look like ideas and song lyrics mid-scribble. Sammy Z Webster’s lighting design splashes it all in just the right colors.

There’s even a whole bit where the characters wonder aloud if reviews matter, which, as a reviewer, made me laugh. Now here you are, reading my review of their debate about the value of reviews. See what just happened? We’ve gone full meta. You’re basically in the cast now.