Ms. Clark giggled.

In 2013, “Mama’s Broken Heart,” about a woman losing her grip after losing her other half, was a big hit for Miranda Lambert, reaching No. 2 on Billboard’s hot country songs chart. And the grim tale of toxic love “Better Dig Two” hit No. 1, putting the Band Perry on the map.

Nashville cognoscenti revere Ms. Clark and Mr. McAnally for songs like these, with their pointillistic detail and emotional arcs that don’t neatly resolve. And over the past few years, as a pair of convention-tweakers in a town in thrall to its conventions, they’ve had a meaningful influence, thanks especially to their work with the upstart Kacey Musgraves, and to Ms. Clark’s burgeoning solo career. (She released her debut album, “12 Stories,” in 2013.)

As country music progressives and sometime heretics, they were ideal candidates to take on musical theater. “We just naturally lean toward saying things that are so image-based that it lends itself to theater,” Mr. McAnally said. (Both are gay, a Nashville rarity but a musical-theater shrug.)

Their brand of mild redneck revisionism is central to “Moonshine,” a musical in the key of “Hee Haw,” the television variety show that during its run from 1969 to 1992 painted a fun-house version of rural America, lowbrow but knowing. (Reruns are on the RFD network.)

“Moonshine” dates to 2011, when the Opry Entertainment Group wanted to extend the “Hee Haw” franchise. It hired Robert Horn to write the book for a musical based on the “Hee Haw” world, and began a search for songwriters to imbue it with genuine country authority. Ms. Clark and Mr. McAnally were hired in early 2013. (Amusingly enough, “Hee Haw” itself was developed not in Nashville but by Canadians.)