RIDING INTO THE SUNSET

Gotta sing! Gotta dance! Gotta twirl those six-guns!

Yup, "Johnny Guitar" is one musical with more than a bit of a twist.

The off-Broadway award-winner -- inspired by a campy 1954 big-screen Western -- closes Super Summer Theatre's 32nd season with a bang.

A six-performance run begins Thursday at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, where the wide-open surroundings provide an ideal backdrop for the frontier-flavored show, notes director Terrence Williams.

"It really is the perfect setting," he says, citing "the mountains and the sounds of wild burros." Providing the braying burros do so in tune and in tempo, he jokes.

Then again, joking also fits perfectly with "Johnny Guitar's" tongue-in-cheek approach.

After all, "you don't expect singing and dancing cowboys," Williams says.

Or pistol-packin' mamas like Vienna, the sultry saloon owner (Kimmie Kidd) and her jealous nemesis Emma (Courtney Sheets), the town tycoon. (Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge originated the roles on the big screen, which touted Crawford as "Gun-Queen of the Arizona Frontier! ... and her kind of men!!!")

"It's kind of a sex-reversal Western," Williams says. "The women duke it out" -- to the tune of a number titled "Bad Blood" -- "and the men just watch."

And while Nick van Hoogstraten's stage adaptation preserves most of the movie's "great lines," audiences don't need to be familiar with the movie to appreciate the stage adaptation, the director maintains.

"If you've seen the movie, it's great -- and if you haven't seen the movie, it's great," Williams says.

Reflecting the movie's 1950s origins, "Johnny Guitar's" musical score -- by Joel Higgins (yes, the same Joel Higgins who starred in the '80s sitcom "Silver Spoons") and Martin Silvestri -- combines Western and rock 'n' roll influences. Call it tumbleweed doo-wop.

The action begins when the title character, a handsome stranger with a secret past (Jay Joseph, stepping into the boots originally worn by the movie's Sterling Hayden), rides into town -- and tangles with Vienna's current squeeze, the hot-headed Dancin' Kid (Dan Bernbach, who's also the show's musical director, in the role originally played by Scott Brady).

The musical's title number describes the cynical Vienna as someone who'd "long ago learned that you don't give an inch to or trust anyone more dangerous when he's wearing a grin than a gun -- like Johnny Guitar."

Emma, meanwhile, likens her rival to "a tramp" and "a siren" in song, advising her fellow townfolk that "you better wake up, get your guns and a rope -- we're way beyond feathers and tar."

Throughout, the musical's creators "tried to capture some of the fun of the movie," director Williams notes, citing the "comic relief" of the ensemble numbers.

After capturing the 2004 Outer Critics' Award for best off-Broadway musical during its New York run, "Johnny Guitar" got out of town -- in numerous productions from Boston to Branson, Mo. The Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City presented it last fall. "Johnny Guitar" also has played the famed Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland -- and gallops to Germany next year.

But Super Summer Theatre organizers weren't looking for a musical to close the current season. Instead, they wanted a melodrama, Williams notes.

And while "the show certainly has its melodramatic moments," its status as a full-fledged musical prompted some concern, he recalls.

Even so, "they took a listen," Williams adds. "And they loved it."

So did Williams and his Stage Door Entertainment colleagues, many of whom participated in Stage Door's Super Summer Theatre production of "Ragtime" earlier this season. (Eight of "Johnny Guitar's" nine cast members performed in "Ragtime," he notes.)

Unlike "Ragtime," which "is so serious," Williams says, "we can have a little bit of fun" with "Johnny Guitar."

Overall, "the show's been a blast to work on," the director adds. And not just because of its spoofy tone.

"Ragtime" has more than 30 people in its cast, according to Williams. "This is a cast of nine. You can spend more time with each character, instead of a cattle call."

Then again, maybe a cattle call would be right at home on "Johnny Guitar's" range.