Shannon McEldowney, Jonah Cochin, Robert Ollis, Lexi Alioto, and Casey Coppess Photo by Candice Lee Conner

If the whole thing has a "let's put on a show" vibe, it is purely intentional. This is not meant to be a smooth, high-concept, tech-heavy show. Since its entire raison d'etre is to allow the writers to enter that festival with a fully improvised musical based on themselves and their friends, lots of tech would just get in the way. (This is not to say that there is none at all: Aidan Smith's lighting and Val Gardner's sound, for instance, are carefully wrought. And those projections, by Joel Zishuk, do a lot more than simply give us dates and locations.) No, the point is that the show, though much enhanced by this wizardry, is not dependent upon it: this is a simple story of fairly average people doing something for the love of doing it.

Españo, aided by some kick-ass choreography by Britta Lynn Schlicht and excellent music direction by Robert Ollis, brings this to life on an open, plain-looking stage–a clever design by Anshika Pathak that masks several little surprises–with no furnishing other than four chairs, cleverly arranged in various groupings by the performers. Upstage center is a lone keyboardist (Ollis), facilitating a running gag about whether union rules permit him to utter any dialogue, and that's it. It's up to Españo and his actors to bring it all alive and allow us to imagine what we don't see.

The two men who play the writers, Casey Coppess as Hunter and Jonah Cochin as Jeff, inhabit a camaraderie that suggests long-germinating friendship and long-frustrated creative ambitions. Once they start to write scenes–and the show's wonderful gimmick is that its improvised and unedited scenes consist of everything that they actually say while doing so, even if it was a mistake in the moment–things start to happen. This is a show in which, if an actor is hungry and orders a sandwich, not only is that action added to the show, but so is the delivery and even the consumption of the sandwich. It's theatre verité to the nth degree.

The playwrights' two friends are portrayed here by Lexi Alioto as Susan, a struggling actor who is currently working an office job, and Shannon McEldowney as Heidi, an actress coming off of a chorus part and longing for something more. Alioto and McEldowney fit perfectly into the universe of Hunter and Jeff: it's easy to believe that these people would enjoy hanging out together through the often tedious process of creating a musical.

From the "Untitled Opening Number," which explains what is going on, this show is full of songs representing the ups and downs of the creative process. Heidi laments that, after all of the work she has put into acting, she's stuck in a show where "I Am Playing Me." Susan struggles to overcome the "vampires" of doubt that might doom a show ("Die, Vampire, Die"). Jeff and Hunter dream of being "Part of It All" if their show is a success. And when the possibility of real success comes–Sutton Foster expresses interest in joining the cast and things start getting out of hand–they have to pull back to realize what they actually mean by success ("Nine People's Favorite Thing").

This is a musical that feels totally honest partly because it is and partly because Bowen and Bell are unafraid to present it warts and all. In Españo's deft hands, it is also utterly entertaining. It is easily the best musical I've seen from Pride Arts this year.

[title of show] runs through September 22, 20242, at Pride Arts Center, 4139 N. Broadway, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit pridearts.org.