It’s 11:30 on a Tuesday night. Stoplights blink placidly. Main Street appears deserted, as if the plot of the latest blockbuster post-apocalyptic movie has come true.

But inside the Sooner Theatre, the cast and crew of “The Goodbye Girl” sings and dances into the night, ignoring the time as they plow through one of their final rehearsals.

“We’ve had a much more condensed rehearsal process than some of our other shows,” director Brandon Adams said. “There’s a line between ‘OK, these people have school and lives and need to get home,’ and, ‘This needs to be a good production.’ We have to walk that line. We’d like to take pride in the fact that this theater is one notch below professional.”

Late night run-throughs aren’t the only way this musical penned by playwright Neil Simon stands out, however.

Like fellow Broadway shows “Hairspray” and “The Producers,” “The Goodbye Girl” was a movie first, produced in 1977 starring Richard Dreyfuss.

“They did the movie first, and then they contacted Marvin Hamlisch, who did a number of movies and some musicals, such as ‘A Chorus Line,’ and they decided to try this as a musical,” Adams said about the show’s origin.

Featuring the story of an actor and heartbroken single mother thrust together in one apartment, the romantic comedy went to Broadway in 1993 featuring musical theater goddess Bernadette Peters and comedy actor Martin Short.

Running only 211 performances, it wasn’t the smash hit one might expect from such well-known actors or a work by Simon.

Adams, who also is production director for the Sooner Theatre, maintains that any Broadway troubles the show might have had was not the fault of the show itself.

“[The Broadway director] definitely went with, you know, a Broadway fixture and a well known comedic performer ... and I don’t think it ran particularly long [because] I think it’s really a play with music,” he said.

“A lot of musicals are, ‘We’ll throw some lines in to get to the next song or dance number,’ and this show isn’t like that.

“There’s a lot more meat to the script, and it may have taken a lot of people by surprise, like, ‘Wait, this isn’t what I expecting,’”

Adams has made a few changes from the original Broadway production, hoping to make the show more applicable to modern audiences.

“We’ve modernized the show a bit,” he said. “We were rehearsing one scene in particular and the actor playing Elliot asks, ‘Did I happen to stumble across the only remaining pay phone in Manhattan?’ Now he’s calling from his cell phone.”

While the show may not have been what Broadway audiences were anticipating, Adams is confident the masterful writing will be a draw for Norman audiences — especially fans of Simon’s other work.

“His fingerprints are all over this,” he said. “The music’s great, but the reason you’d come to see this is the clever wit of Neil Simon.”

If you go

WHEN: 8 p.m. show:
» Oct. 8
» Oct. 9
» Oct. 15
» Oct. 16
2 p.m. show:
» Oct. 10
» Oct. 17

WHERE: Sooner Theatre, 101 E. Main St. in Norman

PRICE: $25 and $20, half-off student tickets are available on the day of the performance

INFO: Call 405-321-9600 or visit soonertheatre.com