Once upon a time, there was a land where the majority of the inhabitants were gay and heterosexual people were shunned and discriminated against. In a place called Heartsville, U.S.A., there lived a magical matchmaker named Zanna who spent his days at Heartsville High School matching up those who had extra love to share. Using his magical powers, Zanna “facilitated” romance, matching up the boys with the boys and the girls with the girls. All was good in Zanna’s world, until one day, Steve and Kate discovered that they had feelings for each other – of the heterosexual kind! With the town in an uproar, Steve and Kate went to Zanna for help. Can Zanna make the world safe for heterosexuals? Will they all live happily ever after?

The book, music, and lyrics for Zanna, Don’t! were written by Tim Acito, with additional book and lyrics by Alexander Dinelaris. After a developmental run at Theater Row in 2002, Zanna, Don’t!: A Musical Fairy Tale, opened off-Broadway on March 20, 2003, at the John Houseman Theater, starring Jai Rodriguez as the “Magical Matchmaker” Zanna.

The run closed after three months, but was slated to move to Broadway in the summer of 2005. The move was re-scheduled to the summer of 2006, with the title changed simply to Zanna! After workshops with Avenue Q star John Tartaglia, revamping of the script and score, the run was postponed.

While there are currently are no plans to take the show to Broadway, Zanna, Don’t! has been performed regionally in Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Zanna, Don’t! will make its San Diego debut on Friday, April 17.

Acito sat down with the Gay & Lesbian Times to talk about the Off-Broadway musical fairytale and magical high school matchmaker who challenges the way we view love.

Gay & Lesbian Times: Explain the reference and history of the title Zanna Don’t!?

Tim Acito: The idea for the show came certainly before the title. The idea of the show was to take all the aspects of pop culture that I grew up knowing and loving – pop music, pop TV in particular – and recreate that in the light-hearted musical theatre format but in a reverse world in which homosexuality was the norm. As I developed the story and wrote the score, which is a tribute to all the different genres of pop music that I grew up loving from country to funk to hard rock to sappy ballads, I somehow came up with the idea of inverting a classic icon of pop culture, Xanadu and make it the reverse which was Zanna Don’t! That was generally how the idea came about.

GLT: Zanna is the name of a character?

TA: Yes, Zanna became the name of a character. At one point in his earliest incarnation, Zanna was on roller skates. That’s how he went from one matchmaking adventure to the next. That was an echo of Zanna Don’t! The roller skates were quickly dropped and there basically was no other connection to Xanadu. In plain sight the title can be a little misleading.

GLT: How did you come up with this premise of reversing the norm of heterosexuality and homosexuality?

TA: It came to me fairly quickly one afternoon as I was listening to a beautiful love song by Clint Black. It was called something that we do. It’s a beautiful song if you don’t know it. It just hit me that it would be really nice one day to hear a straightforward, irony-free masculine country love song from one man to another. When that thought struck me, it then quickly struck me that it would be lovely to hear all types of pop music in a gay context. And from there it was a quick leap to thinking wouldn’t it be nice to be experiencing all of culture in a gay context or at least have that as an option.

GLT: Was this your first trek into musicals?

TA: It was the second musical I had written. This was my first all-original show, and it was certainly my first professionally produced show.

GLT: When did you first produce it?

TA: It was produced originally in a basement of a bar up at Yale where I was in graduate school at the time back in spring of 2000.

GLT: Since then, it’s had a run?

TA: From there it ran off Broadway in 2002 and then transferred off Broadway in 2003, and then there was some effort put into revamping the show with the aim of a Broadway run, but that never fully materialized so it was published back in 2007. For the past two years it’s been done across the country. There have been a fair number of overseas productions as well.

GLT: Has Zanna Don’t! received any recognition?

TA: It was nominated for several drama desk awards, and it won the GLAAD (Gay And Lesbians Against Defamation) Media Award back in 2003.

GLT: How was that for you to see this fairy tale you developed receive recognition?

TA: It’s been delightful and thrilling and sometimes frustrating because sometimes in musical theater you’re never really in control. It’s always a very collaborative, communal process. The power is always ultimately with the people with the purse strings. As another dimension to the experience, it was very interesting and somewhat disturbing to see how varied the reaction to the piece was. Some people loved it, others absolutely hated it and said I was the anti-Christ.

GLT: What was your reaction to them?

TA: I’m still at a stage in my life where it is hurtful but mostly it’s frustrating, because it’s very difficult to have a cognitive, respectful, continual, two-way dialogue between critics and authors. The show is done; they see it once, and they comment. That’s basically it, unless you want to get into some sort of blog war, which seems like a very daunting and dehumanizing activity. As an author, I wish there were more opportunities to discuss why someone might have hated the show or why they may have loved the show or what they were confused about. That’s the nature of the business.

GLT: Do you believe there are misconceptions about the production?

TA: One thought that always seems to come up, not only with the gay and lesbian community, but any community in America, is often an undue pressure placed upon a production to encompass the entire cultural experience. That goes for the GLBT, black or Latino communities in theater or film. I say that because Zanna Don’t! by no means has any aspiration to represent the entirety of the gay and lesbian experience because there is no way to do so.

GLT: What do you hope audience members take away from the Zanna experience?

TA: Its love with very modest aims but a big heart. I hope its spirit will shine through even if it doesn’t’ fulfill every single person’s expectation. I hope everyone enjoys it.

Presented by the independent production company, Ariel Performing Arts, Zanna, Don’t! is directed by Ira Spector, with musical direction by Amy Dalton and Patrick Marion. Performances are scheduled for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 7:30 p.m., from April 17 through May 10, plus an “Industry Night” performance on Monday, April 27. All performances will be at the Roosevelt Theatre, located at 3366 Park Blvd. in Hillcrest.

Ticket prices range from $25 to $28, with discounts for seniors, students and active-duty military. Tickets can be purchased online at www.zannasd.com or by calling 619-692-1875.