Brick (Jose Garcia) and Tammy (Jojo Garcia) enjoy cheeseburgers in paradise.

As northeast Ohio gets colder, an “Escape to Margaritaville” might sound especially pleasing now.

Kent State University at Trumbull Theater will provide that escape — no plane ticket needed — for an eight-performance run starting tonight.

While a big musical normally is part of the theater program’s Summer Stock season, those types of shows seldom are staged during the school year.

“Talking with the campus admin, they were asking what can we do to draw more people here,” said Director Eric C. Kildow. “Here in the U.S., the answer to that is musicals. Why don’t we add another musical to the season? Our theater was closed down last summer for HVAC renovations, I thought since we’re missing out on summer and if we’re going to do it in the fall, let’s do something summery.

“I heard the rights to the Jimmy Buffett musical had come available, well, shoot, let’s do that. I’m a Parrothead. I’ve been one since I was 13 years old. Now seems like a good time.”

Buffett, who died Sept. 1 at age 76, was a singer-songwriter who became a billionaire by selling stories about a carefree life on the islands, be it Key West, Florida, or points further south. It’s a brand that spawned best-selling books, restaurants, frozen food, merchandise (not only T-shirts and traditional concert merch but also products like blenders) and even retirement communities.

One of the few failures on Buffett’s resume is “Escape to Margaritaville,” which ran for less than four months on Broadway in 2018, received no Tony nominations and mostly scathing reviews.

“It’s not an amazing script,” Kildow said. “It’s a relatively thin story that stitches together Jimmy Buffett’s music, mostly his greatest hits. I think a big part of it is, your average Broadway audience and your average Parrothead, that is a diagram, I think, that doesn’t have a huge overlap … It went on tour and seemed to do just fine outside of the city. I think with New York (production) prices, it wasn’t going to break even, given the critical consensus.”

But Kildow said it is a fun show, and they’re trying to bring that party atmosphere to the production.

“Theater, generally speaking, is sit down and watch the show,” he said. “If you’ve ever been to a Jimmy Buffett concert, you don’t spend a lot of time sitting … It does say in our program, some of the lyrics have been changed slightly to fit the song, but feel free to sing along.”

The musical features such familiar songs as “Fins,” “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” “Volcano,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and, of course, “Margaritaville.”

Kildow said he likes how “Coconut Telegraph” is used in the show and how it incorporates parts of “Last Mango in Paris” and “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.” The show also has made him a fan of “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” Buffett’s collaboration with Alan Jackson that was one of Kildow’s least favorite Buffett songs before rehearsals started.

“The cast, especially some of the younger people, it’s the only Jimmy Buffett song they’d actually heard before,” he said. “They really leaned into it and the ethos, ‘Yeah, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere,’ and now I like it. They’ve changed my mind about the song.”

The cast features Harmon Andrews, Bethany Yamaner, Jose Garcia, Jojo Garcia, Jacquelyn Shannon, Ron Wolford, Jonathan Bahrey, Dakota Smith, Jessica Marsh-Taylor, Adam Garon, Emma Woodyard, Kat Roman, Sherri Mayoros and Aset Jones-Bey.

They will be accompanied by a live band featuring Matt White, music director and keyboard; Steve Spencer, guitar; Dan Paterson, guitar; Brad Seelbach, bass; Bob Bacha, drums; and Madison Zets, mallet percussion.

The jukebox musical was written by Greg Garcia (who created such television series as “My Name Is Earl,” “Raising Hope” and “Yes, Dear”) and Mike O’Malley (one of the stars of “Yes, Dear”).

“The guys who wrote the book primarily wrote for movies and television, and if you know what to look for, it shows,” Kildow said. “There are 20 scenes, 10 in each act. Staging it in the space is a challenge. It changes a lot and very quickly. You can tell they wrote for television and movies because they’re used to being able to cut to this or change to that.

“The nice thing is we have this flexible space, so we can put the barroom upstage and it’s always sort of there. I wanted the dive bar to be always visible. It’s always there. Margaritaville, no matter what you’ve got going on, you can go and there will be someone and you can sit down and have a cold one and take it easy for a minute. And we have that nice thrust, that apron on the stage, and we can do a lot of the stuff that’s not in the barroom further downstage.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Escape to Margaritaville”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 19

WHERE: Kent State University at Trumbull, 4314 Mahoning Ave. NW, Champion

HOW MUCH: $20 adults, $17 students and senior citizens and $15 children 12 and younger. Tickets are available online at www.kent.edu/trumbull/theatre and by calling 330-675-8887.