Albert Lea audiences love musicals. They also love comedies.

The next Albert Lea Community Theatre play offers them the best of both worlds.

ACT will present “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” April 30, May 1 and 2 and May 6-9 at 7:30 p.m. There is also a 2 p.m. matinee on May 3. All performances are at the Marion Ross Performing Arts Center, 147 N. Broadway Ave.

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master, Hero, woo the girl next door, Philia.

“It’s got mistaken identities, people masquerading as somebody else, people lying about who they are and potion mix-ups,” said Director Steve Kinney. “All kinds of funny things happen, and we hope people come and sit and laugh.”

He said he counted 90 entrances and exits in the last 12 pages of the scrip alone.

Kinney said the show was chosen because it’s a funny, great old musical and those are always worth doing again. The story is by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was first produced on Broadway in 1962.

“This is one of Sondheim’s earliest shows,” Kinney said.

The title comes from the line that vaudeville comedians often used to begin a story: “A funny thing happened on the way to the theater.”

The set, designed by Kinney and built by his brother, Mike, actually has three houses next to each other. One is owned by Hero’s parents, Senex and Domina. Another is owned by Marcus Lycus, a buyer and seller of beautiful women, and the third belongs to Erronius, who is abroad searching for his long-lost children (stolen in infancy by pirates).

The show features Patrick Menning as Pseudolus, Jim Broberg as Senex, Emily Bartley as Domina, Adam Tulkki as Hero, Larry Pierce as Hysterium, David Dahlquist as Erronius, Gordy Handeland as Miles Gloriosus, Al Blumenshein as Marcus Lycus, McKinzey Christian as Tintinabula, Erin Lowe as Panacea, Jill Jensen and Allyssa Sorenson as the Geminae, Kate Ellertson as Vibrata, Carrie Boyer as Gymnasia, Ariel Myran as Philia and Matt Attig and Tony Segura as proteans, soldiers, citizens and all other parts in the history of the theater.

Menning, who was featured in a number of productions at Albert Lea High School and Albert Lea Community Theatre and Minnesota Festival Theatre when he was growing up, is going to be starting an entertainment company in Florida and attending graduate school at Full Sail University.

The school is geared toward the entertainment industry. Menning said he hopes to do it all, from performing to producing. After high school, he earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion from the University of North Dakota.

He said his sister, Erin Lowe, actually talked him into auditioning.

“I’ve never been in a show with my sister before,” he said. “It’s fun.”

They even got their dad, Tom Menning, to help paint sets.

Lowe said she was involved in a few ACT shows in the late ‘90s, including “Narnia,” “Winnie the Pooh” and “Pippi Longstocking,” and was in a Summerset Theatre play in Austin last summer.

“It’s fun to be something you’re not,” the preschool and dance teacher said.

Jim Broberg said he chose to audition for the show because he’s now retired and hadn’t been in a production since Minnesota Festival Theatre put on “The Wizard of Oz” some 15 years ago.

“It’s a fun show,” he said, adding he saw the ACT production 26 years ago and a University of Minnesota production as well as the movie.

Joyce Matthies is choreographing the show. She also choreographed the show when ACT produced it in 1983.

Adam Tulkki of Amery, Wis., is actually a student at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He’s student teaching this semester in Albert Lea.

Tulkki has done the show once before; in his hometown community theater production, however, he played Hysterium.

“It’s been fun,” he said of being cast in the show. “It’s fun to do something outside school.”

Norrine Jensen is the musical director. “She’s fantastic,” Kinney said. “She can do anything or will try anything.”

Costumes are by Barb Lang. Karen Szymanowski and Kris Bartley are the stage directors.

For tickets, call the box office at 377-4371.