EMU Faculty member Phil Simmons as Hysterium and student Maxim Hunt as Pseudolus.

Director Pirooz Aghssa’s take on “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” now playing at Eastern Michigan University, involves the musical’s first act happening during the course of auditions and then a rehearsal.

If this sounds to you like a kind of mash-up of “Forum” and the iconic musical “A Chorus Line,” Aghssa and his creative team (including music director R. MacKenzie Lewis) are way ahead of you, inserting a musical riff from “I Hope I Get It” while the actresses playing “Forum”’s courtesans perform choreography (a much-appreciated tip of the hat to the musical theater geeks in the crowd).

The moment is just one of many witty, creative touches in the production, and Aghssa’s vision makes the first act of this familiar show astonishingly fresh. So generally, I had a decent time at “Forum,” despite the fact that some of the performers’ execution of the show’s vocals and choreography was spotty.

With a book by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, “Forum” tells the story of a Roman slave, Pseudolus (Maxim Hunt), who tries to earn his freedom by helping his young master, Hero (Dan Helmer), woo the affianced virgin-next-door, Philia (Krissi Hardy).

Right from the show’s opening number, “Comedy Tonight,” some pitch and vocal balance issues arose, and the orchestra sometimes overwhelmed the singers. Plus, microphone problems plagued the cast throughout the evening; during “That Dirty Old Man,” for instance, well-sung by Domina (Emily Tipton), the sound system flickered in and out repeatedly.

The audition/rehearsal frame of the first act, though, provides inroads to new sources of humor in the script; offers a solution to some of its wince-inducing moments; and grants actors some leeway for spontaneity.

On opening night, for instance, a tiara on Hardy’s head fell off mid-song, and a dancer slipped; but because of the rehearsal setting, such moments feel looser and less tense. Aghssa’s concept also allows some offensive moments in the script to be acknowledged, so that we see an actress reluctantly forcing herself to assume the role of a ditzy blonde, and hear Hunt, after delivering the line, “There’s a lot of you there,” apologetically adding to the actress, “It’s in the script!” Plus, Hunt allowed himself to laugh at co-star Phil Simmons’ (playing Hysterium) hammy, crowd-pleasing antics on a couple of occasions.

Indeed, Simmons, an EMU faculty member, is a major comic attraction - not surprising since he previously starred in a touring production of “Forum.” Hunt turns in a marvelous performance, too, appearing to be a Simmons-in-training.

Hardy delivers strong vocals and nails some comic bits; and as the neighborhood pimp, Marcus Lycus, Daniel Millhouse has some fine comic moments, as does Matthew Andersen as Miles Gloriosus.

And if this review has focused largely on “Forum”’s first act, that’s because I had some trouble making the conceptual leap to the second act. Suddenly, we’re in the finished production in Las Vegas in the 1960s. Switching to the rehearsal’s final product seems logical and necessary - costume changes for certain sight gags wouldn’t work nearly as well in a rehearsal setting, among other things - but I got no strong sense of the era from the first act; in fact, much of it looked and felt quite contemporary. Yes, a couple of male actors had a '60s or '70s vibe in terms of their costumes, but little else clued me in and gave me a sense of cohesion to the second act.

Consequently, the two acts didn’t quite jell for me. But I nonetheless cracked up at Tipton actually doing a backbend to demonstrate the lengths she’d go to help Miles Gloriosus; at Simmons (in drag) and Hunt pairing up for a hysterical reprise of “Lovely”; and at a slow motion “Chariots of Fire” bit that comes in the midst of a chaotic running-and-slamming-doors scene that’s part of every farce.

So while the show has some problems, I still had a good time, and there’s always something to be said for that.