The fun’s as easy as pie

“Pump Boys and Dinettes,”  the second show in Heritage Theatre Festival’s new season, opens Tuesday in the Helms Theatre with a multitasking cast, a chicken-fried score and a built-in prize giveaway.

The musical sweeps audience members away to a combination filling station and diner that brings to mind the quintessential small-town enterprises that make getting off the interstate the best part of summer travel.

The Pump Boys, played by Richard McNulty, Ryan DeNardo, Jeff Ostermueller and Rafe Andrews, are here to fill your tank before you head out on Highway 57. And the Dinettes — Kristen Bowden and Beth Kuhn as the Cupp sisters — have been cooking all day to make sure that you won’t be running on empty, either.

Just set your GPS for Frog Level, N.C., to find the Double Cupp Diner, and put your troubles on cruise control.

“It’s a great escape into that world,” director Renee Dobson said. “These characters are very simple. It’s nice to have that in our complicated times.”

The country tunes are part of the show’s smiles-per-gallon strategy, Dobson said.

“With ‘Pump Boys,’ it’s great because it’s billed as a country music revue,” Dobson said. “When you go out of there, you’re definitely humming the tunes. It’s a real all-American, down-home sort of thing.”

There’s a loose story line to keep the show moving — and an interactive quality that keeps audience members engaged.

“The girls are out in the audience a lot,” Dobson said.

The director’s advice for audience members who haven’t seen the show before: Hold onto your ticket stub. A prize drawing has been written into the script.

“They talk a lot to the audience, and they do a prize raffle,” Dobson said of the cast.

“It keeps you connected, I think, to live theater.”

And, just like the real-life folks who keep mom-and-pop businesses humming by juggling multiple jobs, the six cast members don’t have much time to goof off.

“It’s amazing watching them multitask the whole thing,” Dobson said. “The show is set up in such a way that they are their own band.”

Characters may be playing piano one minute and accordion or guitar the next, later trading them for kitchen utensils and some pots and pans used as percussion instruments. The cast members accompany each other in a variety of upbeat songs, which include “Serve Yourself,” “Farmer Tan,” “Drinkin’ Shoes,” “Be Good or Be Gone,” “Tips” and “Closing Time.”

“It’s a great family show,” Dobson said.

details

“Pump Boys and Dinettes”

Heritage Theatre Festival

8 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; runs through July 11

$27; $23 seniors and University of Virginia faculty and staff members; $15 students

http://artsboxoffice. virginia.edu

http://www.uvahrt.org

924-3376