Nine people's favorite thing

You have until April 23 to see the musical [title of show], over at the Vineyard Theatre on East 15th. It's the delightful, toe-tapping equivalent of Escher's hand drawing a hand, or Lem's book review, in A Perfect Vacuum, of a book called A Perfect Vacuum. Faced with an impending deadline for a theater festival, two struggling collaborators decide to write a musical about . . . writing a musical, enlisting two actress friends along the way. Everything anyone says becomes part of the script — but of course even these spontaneous speeches are scripted. Even filling out the festival application form becomes songworthy (yes, in "Filling Out the Form"). Things really hit the vertigo point when the musical is submitted and the creators bring the show to the festival . . . and perform it . . . and look for backers . . . and pose for photo shoots — but is the play finished, or are these elaborations part of the play?

We turn again to Destroyer to help us ponder:

Was it the movie or the "Making of Fitzcarraldo"
where someone learned to love again?
"I can't remember" is not the same as "I don't know"...
—"Virgin With a Memory"