Carlos Monarrez

Detroit Free Press

In his new play, “Hockey, The Musical!” Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom has one simple goal for the 90-minute, fast-paced, wacky comedy filled with angels, flying octopi and penalty boxes.

“If you’re not cracking up every 60 seconds,” he said, “I’m doing something wrong.”

Albom sees the zany musical, which premieres May 19 and is scheduled for a five-week run at the City Theatre in Detroit, “as sort of an underdog musical for an underdog sport in an underdog city.”

“It plays on all the quirky things about hockey,” he said. “It’s very funny and a very shared-with-the-audience-laugh kind of thing, breaking the fourth wall.”

Here’s the basic premise of what Albom describes as an “over-the-top musical farce.”

“The concept is that God decides that man has invented too many sports and he wants to send a message,” he said. “So instead of sending a flood, he just decides to wipe out one sport and he sends an angel down to pick out the sport. And the angel just arbitrarily picks hockey.

“And this hockey fan jumps out of the audience — who’s one of the cast members — and says, ‘Oh, God, no. Anything but hockey. Please, not hockey.’ He begs God if he can find 100 pure hockey souls will he save the sport? And God says, ‘Find five. You’ll never find 100.’ ”

The fan gives the angel the names of five hockey greats.

“But the angel writes the names down, spells the names wrong,” Albom said. “So he gets Duane Gretzky, an African-American guy, and he get Dawn Cherry instead of Don Cherry, a female. So these five people, he’s stuck with them, and they have to sort of defend the sport.”

“Hockey, The Musical!” came about because of the success of Albom’s last play, “Ernie,” which is about to run for a sixth year at the City Theatre. About three or four years ago, the theater asked Albom to write another show.

“And I said, ‘If I ever do something else, I’m going to do a musical about hockey,’ ” he said. “And it was like a joke. And they said, ‘Oh, that’d be great!’ ”

After he finished his most recent book, “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto,” Albom got to work on the slightly bawdy musical.

“It turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought,” he said. “I always thought that hockey’s just got so many elements to laugh at. You think about it: When you do something wrong, they put you in a box and you have to sit there like a little kid and watch the other kids play. So there’s a whole song about being stuck in a box.”

And, Albom warns, flying octopi.

“Like Shamu at SeaWorld, you may get wet,” he said. “You may get hit with a rubber octopus, so you’ve got to be careful.”

The show is the fifth play Albom has written and the second he has produced. But it’s his first musical. Albom worked for several years as a musician early in his career and he writes parody songs for “The Mitch Albom Show” on WJR-AM (760). But musical numbers are entirely different.

“Very challenging,” he said, “because now you’re asking actors to sing their lines and you’ve got make everything rhyme and they have to dance as well. It’s different.”

Albom will get a big assist from his director, who happens to be his brother. Peter Albom is an experienced dancer and choreographer who has directed plays and musicals around the world. That background should come in handy with some of the tricky dance numbers.

“A lot of the funny parts of are they’re going to be on skates, or simulated skates, a lot of the time,” Albom said. “So you can imagine trying to dance skates and doing musical numbers on skates.”

Tickets are $39.50 and can be purchased beginning at 10 a.m. Friday through OlympiaEntertainment.com, box offices at the Fox Theatre and Joe Louis Arena, Hockeytown Authentics in Troy (without service charge) and at all Ticketmaster locations and Ticketmaster.com. A presale begins at 10 a.m. today. Call 800-745-3000 to purchase tickets by phone. Discounts are available for groups of eight or more at 313-471-3099.

Performance schedule:

Thursday, May 19 7:30 p.m.

Friday, May 20 8 p.m.

Saturday, May 21 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Sunday, May 22 2 p.m.

Thursday, May 26 7:30 p.m.

Friday, May 27 8 p.m.

Saturday, May 28 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Sunday, May 29 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 2 7:30 p.m.

Friday, June 3 8 p.m.

Saturday, June 4 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Sunday, June 5 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 9 7:30 p.m.

Friday, June 10 8 p.m.

Saturday, June 11 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Sunday, June 12 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 16 7:30 p.m.

Friday, June 17 8 p.m.

Saturday, June 18 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Sunday, June 19 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.