The search for the Holy Grail will end at Youngstown Playhouse, where Millennial Theatre Company will stage “Monty Python’s Spamalot” for a two-weekend run starting Friday.

“We spent all of last year trying to figure out what to do for our summer show,” Director Joe Asente said. “There were several shows we were hoping would be available for licensing by now that still haven’t come out. We were teetering back and forth between ‘Spamalot’ or ‘Something Rotten,’ and ‘Spamalot’ was one that everyone on our board was really excited about solely because it hadn’t been done around here in a long time. I think the last time someone did it was when the Youngstown Playhouse did it, and that was 12, 13 years ago.”

The Eric Idle-John Du Prez musical is an adaptation of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The British comedy troupe may be a product of the Baby Boom generation, but Asente is well-versed in its absurdist style of humor.

“It (‘Spamalot’) was the first show I ever saw on Broadway, so I have a very strong emotional attachment to this show,” he said. “And it (‘Holy Grail’) was one of the movies that I think defined my childhood. It’s very much my dad’s sense of humor. He introduced the movie to me. So it’s something that’s very close to my heart.

“And I think, as we were looking at the two shows, they obviously have a lot of similarities between them, just kind of set in two different eras. But ‘Spamalot’ is just so uniquely funny in its own right. It won the Tony so it’s popular, it’s well known. And all those factors combined just made it a perfect choice for a summer show.”

Seeing the show on Broadway made an impression on the young Asente.

“I had never experienced a show on that big of a scale that collectively made an audience laugh the way that show did. The only other shows I’d seen up to that point that were done on a Broadway scale were like the tours of ‘Phantom (of the Opera)’ and ‘Wicked,’ I think. Neither of those are hilarious comedies. So it was really the first time I had been in a room where the laughter was uncontrollable, and that in itself, as a creative person, thinking, ‘I could do that, I could make someone laugh this way,’ is really an inspiring thing.”

Because of Monty Python’s loyal fan base, “Spamalot” auditions drew many hardcore fans, but just as many had never seen the Minister of Silly Walks or the Dead Parrot sketch. While Asente normally encourages actors to avoid watching the movie or television versions of the musicals MTC stages, this time he wanted actors to watch “Holy Grail.”

“The pacing of the dialogue, just the style of British humor in general is something that you have to hear in order to understand it,” he said. “If you’ve never seen the movie, you need to know how those references are delivered in some cases, because there are certain lines that need to be delivered a certain way, not only for the fan base to appreciate them, but just for the joke to be understood. It was definitely a new direction from me, but it definitely paid off for all those people who were unfamiliar with the material.”

For those who only know “Holy Grail,” “Spamalot” isn’t a scene for scene recreation of the movie. For one, it’s a musical, one that incorporates a couple of tunes from the Python canon — most notably a song from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” — and a wealth of new material that spoofs musical theater and other targets the 1975 film didn’t touch.

The script MTC is using is the one for the recent Broadway revival, which updates some of the now-dated topical references from the 2005 Tony-winning production.

“Spamalot” also includes new characters that weren’t a part of “Grail.”

“The biggest one they added is the character of the Lady of the Lake,” Asente said. “There’s almost zero female representation in the movie. She’s a hilarious addition to the show, and Brandi (Johanntges) is just the queen of comedy. She’s really made the role her own and is hilarious in it.”

The rest of the cast includes Nate Beagle, Ryan Lamb, George Maillis, Edward Bazzell, Ben Doss, Tom Kijauskas, Ty Hanes, Andy Scott, Jillian Hibbard, Aubrey Verno, Rebecca Williams, Sydney Campbell, Sammie Gurd, Hannah Sinclair, Steve Millsap, Josh Cummings, Daniel Chiaberta, Sam Campbell, Ethan Blevis, Roz Blystone, Michelle Jalbert and Paula Stehphenson.

Cari Auth is the music director and Danielle Mentzer is choreographer.

Asente called “Spamalot” a massive production, even bigger than last summer’s staging of “The Spongebob Musical.” Itt uses all of the fly system and every square inch of backstage space. Asente admitted they may have underestimated some of the costuming and set and prop demands of the show.

“We’ve never done a show with this many dressers backstage for quick changes,” he said. “A lot of the actors play multiple roles in the show, so there are some people who have eight, nine, 10 different costumes in this show, and they are constantly layering and switching things back and forth. We actually started our dress rehearsal process last week, because there are so many costume changes, just to make sure that we had everything where it needs to be. We have tons of flow charts backstage about where costumes need to get shuffled to and making sure that they’re all rigged correctly for all of the quick changes that need to happen. So major credit goes to (costume designers) Ty (Hanes) and Daniel (Chiaberta) for that.”

Asente estimated that MTC created about 90% of the needed sets, props and costumes for the musical and rented the rest. The company has generated some revenue by renting out the pieces it creates to other theater companies. However, if MTC wants to do that with “Spamalot,” it’s going to have to wait a while.

“The one hiccup in that plan is that when the Broadway production closed, which was this past May I believe, they announced that they’re going on a national tour starting next season,” Asente said. “They are not licensing any new productions of ‘Spamalot’ a lot across the country for the next year, at least. So we’re one of the last ones that’s going to go up for a while. If we let it live in storage for a couple years, I think it would make, you know, great rental material, but we have to kind of weigh that cost option before we make any decisions.”

If you go …

WHAT: Millennial Theatre Company — “Monty Python’s Spamalot”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 4

WHERE: Youngstown Playhouse, 600 Playhouse Lane, Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $20 to $27 and are available online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-788-8739.

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