Community theater will soon be revived with “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” a black comedy that a New York Times reviewer once described as Monty Python meets Quentin Tarantino.

“The play is about a lieutenant in the INLA, a spinoff of the IRA. He gets called back home when his cat is found dead. Essentially, the bodies pile up behind him as he tries to find the murderers of his cat,” said Stuart Lannon.

Lannon is the tech director at Arts of the Pamlico’s Turnage Theatre, who also has a degree in theater design and production from East Carolina University, but “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” will be his first go at directing a production since college.

“I’m just majorly excited about getting a community theater up and running and using this as a springboard to do more shows in the future,” Lannon said.

He was drawn to launching a new community theater at Arts of the Pamlico with “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” because he’d seen the show on Broadway and was impressed.

“I saw it back in 2006 and it is hands down the funniest show I have seen in my entire life,” Lannon said.

Auditions for the production will be held at 6 p.m. Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 at the downtown Washington theater. The eight-member cast is predominantly male, and calls for cast members from teens to their 50s. The lead role, the lieutenant’s age is mid-20s to early-30s, Lannon said. Since the only female role is the lieutenant’s love interest, Lannon decided to for a little leeway in casting two of the three villains in the show.

“They’re specified in the script as male, but I’m going to leave them open-gendered,” he said.

While Lannon will be looking to cast the show mid-January, he said he’s hoping that anyone with any interest in community theater will come to the auditions.

“Even if they aren’t interested in being in the production; even if they’re just interested in doing technical work, building scenes, props, lighting. At the very least, it’s just to get a name, email address and phone number so we can build this community theater project for future productions,” Lannon said.

Starting at 10 a.m. on the days of the auditions, actors will be able to read over the script at the theater. The show is slated to run March 31, April 1 and April 2.

Lannon said he’s looking forward to pulling together community theater aficionados and putting on this production in particular.

“I think this is going to be something we haven’t see before here in Washington. It’s going to be out of the box and definitely new to the area,” Lannon said. “It’s a bloody mess, but it is an absolutely hysterical, over-the-top, dark comedy.”

The Turnage Theatre is located at 150 W. Main St., Washington. Visit www.artsofthepamlico.org for more information.