There's much ado about the new musical comedy making its debut in State College this weekend.

The first staged version of Passaparola -- Italian for "by word of mouth" -- will be performed book-in-hand at 7:30 Saturday night at the University Club, 331 W. College Ave.

The musical comedy is the first collaborative effort by librettist/lyricist Pamela Monk and composer/lyricist Stacy Tibbetts.

The two met last summer when Tibbetts sought a playwright for a musical he was hoping to compose.

"Stacy had been already thinking about how most musicals that have come out recently are adaptations," Monk said.

"We stick fairly close to the Shakespeare plot [of Much Ado About Nothing], but we set it in a modern setting. I picked a restaurant, probably because my son's a chef," she added.

While the main points of the story are the same, some things have changed, such as the current-day Manhattan restaurant setting, an unclear relationship in Shakespeare's script and the role of women in the play, Monk said.

Since December, Monk and Tibbetts have been spreading the word about Passaparola in the Northeast.

"We need to find out how well it works as a piece of musical theater, and ever since December or early January, we've been sending demos of the show's songs and drafts of the script out to regional theaters," Tibbetts said.

Over spring break, Tibbetts took the songs and script of Passaparola to Boston for a workshop of musical writers to get feedback.

Since then, the script and music have both been revised and will probably continue to be revised after this weekend's reading.

"We're eager to see it in front of an audience, mostly to gauge their reaction," Tibbetts said. "Is the audience enjoying themselves? Do they understand the plot and the characters' motivations? The only way to find that out is to stage it."

Since the play is still developing, the actors will perform it with their scripts on hand.

They are prepared to handle any last-minute changes in the script and music because they are either training to go into professional theater or are ex-professional actors, cast member Martha Traverse said.

"It's fun to be in a brand new project," she said. "Stacy and Pam have an awful lot of experience. The music is very catchy and dynamic, and the characters are well thought out and fun and diverse."

While Monday night was the first time the entire cast gathered to rehearse the play, actor Laura Saxe said these early stagings and subsequent tweaking of the script and score are fundamental to the artistic process.

"It's fun doing something that's never been done before, something new," Saxe said. "This is someone's creative endeavors come to life, and I think it's what theater's about."

Monk and Tibbetts are optimistic about the book-in-hand staging of their play, and hope to have a full staging of it in the area sometime soon.

"We're at the point where I'm not even sure what's there yet," Monk said. "I think it's a pretty good adaptation, but what's in my head and what will come across to people who only see it once could be different."