When Love Explodes! Our 10 Favorite Jokes From Hedwig’s Hilarious Hurt Locker Fauxgram

Before you get your world rocked by Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall in Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway, show up to the Belasco Theatre a few minutes early and check under your seat for trash. If you’re lucky, you might discover a discarded program from the fictional Hurt Locker musical, which purportedly ran at the Belasco for one performance before Hedwig moved in. The fake program created by Amanda Duarte, Mike Albo and Rogers Eckersley is an absolute must-read. If you haven’t gotten your hands on a copy yet, check out the highlights below.

1. The run time is six hours and four minutes
The musical, which ran for one performance, closed at intermission, which we assume was about three hours in. They never even get to their big number, “The Humvee With the Roof-Mounted Machine Gun on Top!”

2. Steven Hoggett is “movement director”
Real-life choreographer Steven Hoggett is listed as the “director of movement” while “actual choreography” is credited to somebody named Darrin, whose off-Broadway credits include Screams of Cher and Puppetry of the Naked Penises Singing.

3. Adele Dazeem’s sister is in it
That’s right, D’Bree Dazeem, “sister of Broadway legend Adele Dazeem, but solidly her own person and a unique and special talent,” plays Mala in Hurt Locker. She is filling in for Adele, who supposedly slipped out of her flight harness and shattered her first and second metatarsals. Get well soon, Adele.

4. Taye Diggs quotes Rent in his bio
Meanwhile, Taye Diggs—yes, the actual Taye Diggs—stars in the fake musical, alongside Bobby Cannavale and Michael Cerveris (who played Hedwig off-Broadway) and fictional stars like “Hunter Taylor Thompson-Tyler.” In his bio, Diggs “reminds you that Rent doesn’t pay itself.”

5. The “How Many Have You Seen” list
We spent 15 minutes combing through the insane list of other fake shows on Broadway, including Gravity on Ice, with Johnny Weir and Nancy Kerrigan; Container Store: The Musical; The Entire Bible performed by Fiona Shaw; and Soulcycle on Broadway, playing at the JetBlue Jamba Juice Theatre.

6. Metallica & Stephen R. Schwartz wrote it
No, not Stephen Schwartz, who composed Wicked. Stephen R. Schwartz, who took over when Metallica supposedly “quit two days into their work on Hurt Locker due to creative differences.”

7. La Paciencia is an understudy
Other understudies include D.P. Ression, Will Neverbee, Jimmy S. Corner, Jorge Nuncapagado, Wade Down and Hope Gawn.

8. It features strobe lights & gluten
It also employs smoke, actual bombs, soft shrapnel, loud sounds, three dogs, nudity, torture, cat dander and an unpleasant moment involving an eyelid. The musical also presumably answers the oft-asked question “What is the combination to a locker full of hurt?”

9. The Weisslers will meet you at Sardi’s
Legendary real-life Broadway producers Barry and Fran Weissler are credited as the producers of Hurt Locker. In their bio, they write, “If you have an idea for a new Broadway musical, come talk to them at Sardi’s after the show!”

10. "What’s With All These Goats?"
Other fictional songs include the power ballad “When Love Explodes (Love Theme From the Hurt Locker),” “Army of One,” “Baghdad Mornin’ (Hello, Hazmat),” “Call Me After Call to Prayer,” “Can’t Camouflage Love” and our personal favorite, “Your Body is the Bomb (Literally).”