A New York tradition since 1982, Forbidden Broadway has built its reputation on celebrating the characters and caricatures of Broadway with a well-meaning poke in the eye.

The musical revue, many times rewritten, parodies the successes and well-intentioned failures of the Broadway musical theater. The show, which began in a basement performance space, continues to this day.

Le Chat Noir will present a best-of version of the revue as part of the Westobou Festival. Its production opens Friday.

The show features a cast of five performing parodies of numbers from Broadway productions such as Wicked , Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables. The show also has a little fun with some of the personalities of American musical theater, including Carol Channing, Mandy Patinkin and Liza Minnelli.

"In some ways this is even harder than if you were doing a regular show," said cast member Matthew Perret. "You are required to slip in and out of all these characters and all these styles. You really have to immerse yourself and parody, well, parody is always really hard."

The cast acknowledged that an Augusta audience might not always have had the opportunity to see the shows, but that clever writing and sharp wit often dispels any gaps in knowledge.

"It all starts with the writer," said cast member Greg Goodwin. "We are able to pretty much spoon feed the audience everything they need to know about these shows. Even if they haven't seen the shows, they will still get the jokes."

Mr. Goodwin said that as a performer, the appeal of Forbidden Broadway is the opportunity to perform music and roles, if only in parody, from some of the great musical theater productions. He said there's some dream fulfillment involved.

"It's cool, because you get to play all these roles that you might have always wanted to play, all in two hours," he said.

Cast members have hit YouTube fairly hard, trying to pick up on nuances and performance idiosyncrasies. Joy Swanson, who does the Minnelli number, said she spent hours poring over interviews and performances by the star.

Pam McCorkle said the secret of Forbidden Broadway is, quite simply, going for it.

"You just have to be bold," she said with a laugh. "You have to be bold enough to stand up on that stage and make fun of someone, or something, that is famous."