Welcome to Armadillo Acres Trailer Park, where an unlikely romance develops between an exotic dancer running from an ex-boyfriend and a highway toll collector with an agoraphobic wife.

Trouble is brewing in “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” which Pitt-Greensburg Theatre Company will stage tonight through Sunday in Ferguson Theater on the Hempfield campus — and it’s not just due to forbidden love.

It’s also hurricane season in Florida, where the action takes place.

A satire on trailer park life, the musical depicts some very familiar and relatable human behaviors, said Stephen A. Schrum, Pitt-Greensburg director of theater and associate professor of theater arts.

“For instance, what happens to a married couple who falls on difficult times and can’t re-spark their relationship?” he said. “What happens to a man tempted, as the Squeeze song says, by the fruit of another?

“How does a young woman forced to survive on her own cope with life, even though the work she has chosen may stigmatize her in the views of others?”

The answers to those questions provide opportunities for broad comedy and confrontation as the audience learns about everyone’s dirty laundry.

Courtesy of Pitt-Greensburg Theatre Company Amanda Henry and Cletus McConville II, as Jeannie and Norbert Garstecki, ponder their situation in a scene from “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” running March 31-April 3 at Pitt-Greensburg.  

“The thing I’m enjoying most is some of the comic business that’s happening,” Schrum said. “I see a lot of what past students have called ‘Schrum-ian touches’” — the comedic elements that Schrum inserts into even serious material.

Without giving too much away, Schrum said, in “Trailer Park” that involves the staging of a shotgun wedding.

The spring production is bittersweet for Schrum, who is retiring at the end of the academic year.

The musical features a song called “One Step Closer,” in which two characters reminisce about their relationship. Schrum said it resonates differently for him as he prepares to leave Pitt-Greensburg after 17 years.

One last time

The director said he’s enjoying working one last time with cast members Madison Vogel, who plays Pippi the runaway stripper, and Clayton Gregg V, who plays Duke, the ex-boyfriend who’s pursuing her. The pair also acted last semester in “Private Lives.”

“They’re bringing a close physical and friendly rapport back to this show,” he said. “They have lots of energy, and they’re both doing a phenomenal job.”

Cletus McConville II plays toll collector Norbert Garstecki, and Amanda Henry plays his fear-filled wife, Jeannie. Chris Bartley, Pitt-Greensburg’s director of music, is co-producing the show with Schrum.

With music and lyrics by David Nehls and book by Betsy Kelso, the original “Great American Trailer Park Musical” opened off-Broadway in 2005 and played to sell-out crowds. It has since been performed across the United States and in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in Ferguson Theater at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, 150 Finoli Drive, Hempfield.

Schrum joined the school’s Interdisciplinary Arts faculty in 2005, which later evolved into the Visual and Performing Arts program to better reflect its focus.

He designed Pitt-Greensburg’s Arts Entrepreneurship Certificate Program to help visual and performing arts majors understand the business side of arts and to prepare them to market themselves. He also created a course called Theatre Technology that incorporates digital audio, digital video and virtual worlds.

During his career, Schrum has directed 88 plays and multiple one-acts and overseen some staged readings. He also has mentored a wide variety of students.

“I’m still in contact with many of the students,” he said. “Hearing of their success remains the greatest source of my job satisfaction.”

After retirement, the Latrobe resident said he plans to travel with his fiancée, Joyce Graham. He also plans to stay involved in theater.

“I have a career total of 88 plays I’ve directed, and I’d love to make it to 100,” he said. “I have to find ways to make that number.”

He also has an interest in digital film-making. His 2018 short film, “Wash Hands, Save Lives?” — about a man who follows hand-washing protocol only to leave restroom and be eaten by zombies — has won film festival awards and is available on YouTube.

Tickets are $10, or $5 for students and seniors, and are available only at the door.

For more information on the Pitt-Greensburg production, visit greensburg.pitt.edu/news.

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