A brand new musical will be part of the summer mix for Northern Kentucky University's Summer Dinner Theatre - now the only campus-based summer theater series in the region.

BurgerTown by NKU faculty members Ken Jones (book) and Jamey Strawn (music) with lyrics by Christine Jones will cap a six-week season that opens with Meshuggah-Nuns! The Ecumenical Nunsense (June 15-27) and continues with Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn (July 6-18).

BurgerTown is the story of a simple short order cook at a nondescript diner who hits upon A Burger That Revolutionizes the Fast Food Industry (think golden arches). In this case, the burger icon will be "the shape of the food," Jones entices.

Jones says BurgerTown has a recipe that shares ingredients with Little Shop of Horrors, Pump Boys and Dinettes and Urinetown. At least he hopes so.

"It's a formula that if it's done well, it just works. The audience walks out singing."

BurgerTown plays July 27-Aug. 8.

NKU Summer Dinner Theatre has been selling so well that the schedule will expand to six performances a week, Tuesday through Sunday, in NKU's Black Box Theater in the Performing Arts Center.

Auditions start at noon on March 20 (sign-in at 11:30 a.m.) in the NKU Fine Arts Building. Prepare a one-minute comic monologue and a comedic song from a musical comedy. All performers are paid.

NKU also announces its 2004-05 line-up: Babes in Arms (Sept. 30-Oct. 10), Bus Stop (Oct. 28-Nov. 7), Romeo & Juliet (Dec. 2-12), Bat Boy: The Musical (Feb. 17-27), Y.E.S. (Year-End Series) Festival of New Plays, titles to be announced in early 2005 (April 14-24).