‘50 Shades’ parody opens at Bally’s Feb. 3

Is this how it is on a porn set?

“Conversations like that become weirdly commonplace,” Al Samuels says to his visitor, after a brief rehearsal talk with choreographer Courtney Combs about fists: where they should be, and how they should be displayed when a line of actors simultaneously raises them.

And yes, this is a dirty-joke, sexual-context display of a fist. After all, Samuels is overseeing the cast of “50 Shades! The Parody.” The goal is to cram as many such jokes as possible into 69 minutes (including the running time being 69 minutes).

But here’s a clue the raunchy parody is smarter than its source material, E.L. James’ notorious best-seller“Fifty Shades of Grey.” To further explain how making rhymes about kinky sex acts became his new normal, Samuels cites Mark Twain’s “Two Ways of Seeing a River.” The man once captivated by the river spent so much time traveling it, “the romance and the beauty were all gone.”

Samuels isn’t finished with his journey. At the request of a producer, the veteran comedy writer and director spearheaded a team of creators for the cabaret spoof which debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival nearly three years ago. “50 Shades” went on to become a lucrative touring product — it played The Smith Center for the Performing Arts last summer — and is still playing off-Broadway in New York.

Now a resident company with a local cast opens shop Wednesday in the Windows Showroom at Bally’s, just in time for the long-awaited movie version of “Fifty Shades” on Feb. 13.

“When I first sat down to write it, I had no idea how into this book people were,” Samuels says.

The book was so hot, and apparently spoofworthy, that Samuels’ version (elsewhere subtitled “The Musical Parody”) crisscrossed the country with another “Fifty Shades” skewering called “Spank!,” which was also the work of improv-comedy veterans.

But “Spank!” extended its pop-culture target range to “Twilight” and the whole pulp-romance phenomenon. This one is more focused, as Samuels and co-writer Amanda Blake Davis (who once performed in the Flamingo’s Second City comedy troupe) hone in on the book’s characters and their sexual control issues.

“We’re really fortunate. I think we hit a sweet spot,” Samuels says. “The fans of the book go berserk for it.” His initial concern was “people who were insane fans of the book wouldn’t get the parts that we were making fun of. Bad writing, the caricatures.”

As it turns out, “We do subvert a lot of expectations of the book, but they’re on board.”

Sabrina Sia, who plays one of the show’s Greek chorus trio of book club members, is a confessed reader of the entire “50 Shades” trilogy. “I’m not afraid to admit it. I have no problem with it. It’s fun to read about sex,” she says.

Thereby elected as E.L. James’s Las Vegas defender, Sia says of the book, “We don’t trash it. We embrace it because it’s so great to lightheartedly make fun of.”

She predicts fans of the book will be first in line: “We have to go and see how they’re putting this onstage.” And even fans will realize, “It’s easy to make fun of because it’s so outrageous.”

Though it’s Samuels’ first scripted musical, his even-handedness stems from the improvised musicals he staged with the comedy troupe Baby Wants Candy.

The improv cast would take an audience suggestion such as “Kanye Westside Story” and create a whole musical on the spot. (In that one, Kanye and Taylor Swift replaced Tony and Maria.)

Do that enough times, and it’s easier to see how the Red Room romance of filthy-rich, filthy-handsome — and just plain filthy — millionaire Christian Grey and innocent young student-hardware store clerk Anastasia Steele could be bent to fit the conventions of musical theater.

“You do so many musicals you start to get a good sense of what you really need. You really need a character with a strong want early on,” Samuels says. “No matter how ridiculous or how dirty things get, at the core there has to be a human emotion.”

And so Anastasia’s sense of emptiness is expressed early on with the ballad “(There’s a) Hole Inside of Me.” However, since her innocence is taken to the heights of ridiculousness, she is blithely unaware of the double entendre.

“You have to respect your audience. Play real, play honest,” Samuels says. “You hate the sin but you love the sinners.

“These poor characters, they didn’t know they were going to be put into a poorly written book. They’re Tony and Maria. They just want to fall in love.”

Contact Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.