If you go What: Boulder’s Dinner Theatre presents the new musical “Slow Dance with a Hot Pick Up” When: 5:30 dinner/7 p.m. show Wednesdays, 6:15 dinner/7:45 p.m. show Thursdays through Sundays, also noon lunch/1:30 p.m. show Sundays, and evening shows select Tuesdays, Friday through Nov. 5. Where: 5501 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder Tickets: $35-$56 Information: 303-449-6000 or bouldersdinnertheatre.com

Two hands, 108 hours and one big dream. That’s what each of the characters in the new musical “Slow Dance with a Hot Pick Up” has to work with.

For Michael Duran and Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, the dream is pretty big, as well. For the first time in its 34 years, BDT is staging a brand-new show, a musical that’s not been performed anywhere else. If things go well, it could mark the beginning of a new trend at the theater.

“Slow Dance” takes place during an endurance contest in which people are asked to keep their hand on a new truck for 108 hours. The one who lasts the longest wins the new wheels.

Such contests are common in many parts of the United States, often sponsored by radio stations or automobile dealerships. Several years ago, playwright John Pielmeier spent a couple days observing one of the contests in Evansville, Ind., in preparation for writing the book for the musical. He was surprised by what he encountered.

“The first thing is the expectation that it will turn into a ‘Survivor’-like contest,” Pielmeier told the Camera. “But what becomes of these contestants … they talk to each other, relationships are formed. People become very close to each other and they form a kind of family.”

BDT’s production, set to open Friday, includes a brand-new Toyota Tacoma center stage, and eight characters vying for its keys.

“The story evolves as we get to know each of the characters,” said Duran, BDT’s producing artistic director. “There’s one who is unemployed and who’s served time. He’s there to try to get the truck so he can sell it and get money.”

Another character is a single mother trying to get money to help treat her daughter who suffers from spina bifida.

“It’s all about cheering them on,” Duran said.

People interested in new shows may want to cheer on BDT’s move with “Slow Dance.” Duran has been mulling the idea to expand into the new-musical game for a few years.

“We’re hoping this is going to set a standard for future productions like this so we can bring more new pieces into Boulder and try them out here and hopefully move them on to other places, and eventually New York,” he said.

Duran’s longtime friendship with New York-based theatrical producer John Bonanni led to “Slow Dance” taking its inaugural bow in Boulder. Bonanni was a stage manager for two Broadway shows Duran appeared in during the 1980s and ’90s. He had shown Duran a handful of scripts in recent years, wondering if BDT would be interested in co-producing them, and when Duran saw Pielmeier’s book for “Slow Dance” last year he bit.

“It had a lot of heart, the book was really strong and the cast size was good,” Duran said.

Producing a new musical in New York is an expensive endeavor. Bonanni said co-producing the show in Boulder allows he and BDT to share those expenses and make the venture affordable.

“What this association does is it changes the business structure,” Bonanni said.

Along with Pielmeier, who has had four of his plays on Broadway, including the acclaimed “Agnes of God,” Emmy Award-winning composer Matty Selman is part of the creative team that’s been working in Boulder to bring “Slow Dance” to life. Selman’s score is a pastiche of American musical styles — country, Motown, doo-wop, soft rock and R&B.

The cast includes BDT regulars Scott Beyette and Alicia Dunfee, some familiar faces who’ve been away awhile in Leonard Barrett, Dwayne Carrington, John Scott Clough and Barb Reeves, and newcomers Brett Ambler, Passion Lyons and Sheila Traister.

Those in the creative team said “Slow Dance” isn’t a Broadway-styled show, and they don’t intend to try and get it to the Great White Way. But there is ambition to give it legs after BDT’s version closes. Bonanni said he wants to put together a tour of small venues across the country.

“New Yorkers are myopic,” he said, noting he’s a New Yorker. “They tend to think theater ends at the New Jersey border. But there’s theater all over the country.”

If “Slow Dance” has a life beyond Boulder, BDT stands to reap some financial rewards, as producers of an inaugural production of a play earn royalties on future productions.

It’s all part of Duran’s dream for BDT. While the dinner theater will continue to stage popular titles, Duran hopes to stage new musicals once every season or two.

“We can continue to produce musicals the way we’ve been doing it for 34 years, and it would be fine,” he said. “But I think there’s more out there. We can get out of that box … I hope the community will get on board and support that.”

Contact Camera Theater Critic Mark Collins at BDCTheater@comcast.net.