The idea for Village Theatre’s new musical “Saint Heaven” was born when Composer Keith Gordon met novelist Steve Lyons about five years ago at a cocktail party in New York. Lyons described the plot of a novel he was working on, and Gordon was immediately hooked.

“I got goosebumps while I was listening to him talk,” he said.

Gordon was able to option the story line from Lyons for a play. Although the novel, “The Gift of Tongues,” has not yet been published, Lyons has seen some early performances of the musical and is interested in working some of the elements he enjoyed back into the novel, Gordon said.

Set in 1957 in Kentucky, the play tells the stories of six major characters, each of whom essentially has a “mini-score” in a different musical style, all across the musical spectrum, Gordon said. That spectrum runs from bluegrass to pop/country, to country-rock, to pop-gospel, to gospel-soul, to traditional gospel. The story begins when a white doctor from Detroit goes home to Kentucky for his father’s funeral and falls in love with a black woman who is an aspiring preacher. The tale touches on issues of race, spirituality, religion and science, he said.

“There’s a lot of story in all the songs,” Gordon said, noting that while in theater songs have to function to help tell the story, he also simply wanted the songs to be enjoyable and memorable. So far, feedback from those who have seen the play and actors in the production has been great — many have told Gordon that they can’t get the songs out of their head. Village Theatre has clips of the music on its Web site at www.villagetheatre.org.

“This story is so musical,” he said. “There’s so much that’s inherently dramatic.”

Keith said he’s excited about all aspects of the project from the costumes to the sets to the band and the technical direction. It’s incredible, he said, to finally see the piece that he and so many others have collaborated on coming to fruition.

He emphasized that he and the book writer for the play, Martin Casella, tried to keep the characters very real and true to themselves.

That fact makes the characters easy to act, said Tanesha Ross, who plays the part of aspiring preacher Eshie Willington,

“I feel like they kind of did the work for me,” Ross said. “They’ve really thought about each character — what would they say in this part?”

She said she enjoys the gospel-style songs her character sings, in particular a song called “The Gift,” about what everyone has inside them.

“It’s very easy to get into that mode,” Ross said. “The music is very easy to sink into.”

The songs range from funny to serious, in a very approachable way, she said.

“It’s a nice, sweet story,” Ross said. “I love that it’s humble. It’s not flashy. It’s real.”

If you go

“Saint Heaven” opened Sept. 17 and runs through Oct. 26 Village Theatre. Performances are at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; at 2 p.m. Sundays and some Saturdays; at 7:30 p.m. some Tuesdays and at 7 p.m. on some Sundays. For information or tickets, visit www.villagetheatre.org or call 392-2202.