You'd have to be dead not to get at least some enjoyment out of the University of Pittsburgh Rep's production of Zanna, Don't! Thisexcessively perky off-Broadway musical from 2002, with music by Tim Acito and lyrics and book by Acito and Alexander Dinelaris, starts at the far end of relentless optimism, kicks it up a few notches to explosive joy, and finishes somewhere past delirious cheer. I think I might have seen the cast take a breath about halfway through, but I wouldn't bet on it.
We're in Heartsville, U.S.A., at Heartsville High School, and it's just like any other cartoony, Crayola-colored spoof of middle America ... except it's gay. And I mean waaaay gay. Zanna, Don't! takes place in a homo-normative world in which everybody's LGBT and people have heard about straights but never really met any.
This year the drama club decides to be relevant and stage a musical about allowing heteros into the army. Shocking enough. But...