Jody Mullen and Shayna Vercillo portray two of the six singing and dancing dogs in "Bark! The Musical."

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The concept was just a bit too cutesy for Kevin Johnson's taste — a musical about singing and dancing dogs?

Please.

"I heard about it and thought, hmmm . . . no thanks," recalled Johnson, artistic director of Arizona Onstage Productions, who also by chance is a cat owner.

But after watching "Bark! The Musical" twice last summer in Los Angeles, and then again in Memphis, Tenn., Johnson made it a priority to bring the show to Tucson audiences.

After months of haggling and putting in a bid against 413 other small and midsize theater companies, Johnson landed the deal and is opening "Bark!" next Friday at the 110-seat Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

The 11-performance run in Tucson marks the Arizona premiere for "Bark!"

It is scheduled to debut in November off-Broadway in New York.

In addition to Memphis and Los Angeles, "Bark!" has received mostly critical and audience acclaim in Chicago; Palm Springs, Calif.; and Portland, Ore.

During its two-year run in L.A., the show was named a Critic's Pick by the Los Angeles Times and sold out for most shows.

The story — which is deceptively simple — follows six dogs in a "doggie day care" and in a pound, some of whom need new homes and a better life, Johnson said.

But what may seem to start out all cute and sweet turns into a show with a bit more depth.

"It shows the connections dogs have with people and with an audience. It shows the personality traits of everyone," Johnson said. "These dogs have a story to tell. . . . It shows that animals need a loving owner, but people need companionship. . . . It fills an emotional void in everyone's lives."

Local adoption and rescue agencies — including Arizona Greyhound Rescue, the Humane Society of Southern Arizona and the Foundation for Animals In Risk — will host information booths during the show's scheduled run, July 12-29.

Johnson said that given Arizona Onstage's reputation for edgy productions (the company's last show was "The Full Monty"), audiences might be surprised with the choice to stage "Bark!"

"This is as family-friendly as we get," Johnson said."There's no sex or F-words, but it is a dog story. Part of a dog's story is whizzing on things to mark territory and sniffing other dogs' butts."

And with a couple of playful songs like "Three Bitches," and "Whizzin' on Stuff," that creative edge is still there.

Those songs, though, follow with musical numbers that can pull at the heartstrings, such as "Dog's Best Friend" and "A Grassy Field," a simple song about saying goodbye.

Composed by David Troy Francis, a classical pianist, most of the score is a melange of blues, salsa, country and straight torch songs performed from a dog's point of view.

Once a year, Francis picks a project outside of contemporary American classical music to compose.

He chose to write "Bark!" as his first musical and worked with Gavin Geoffrey Dillard and Robert Schrock to write lyrics.

"My work is always about perspective. I think this music is more accessible and more varied in style than anything I've written," Francis said during a phone call from Los Angeles.

Avoiding violent, sexual and decadent themes, "Bark!" was written as a humorous and uplifting story about the lives of dogs. It is meant to entertain a diverse audience, Francis said.

Often "Bark!" is compared to "Cats," the lavish, award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, a show that gained immense fanfare during its Broadway run from 1982 to 2000, totaling 7,485 performances.

The differences between the shows are numerous. "Cats" was a grand, multimillion-dollar musical, while "Bark!" is a simply staged story about six dogs, with more varied musical numbers, Francis said.

"I didn't like 'Cats.' I didn't care for the show except for a couple songs," he said. "It didn't speak to me. . . . That show was very esoteric in many ways. I didn't identify with it, and I own cats."

Audiences seem to identify with "Bark!" because they either see their own dogs in the characters or see part of themselves in the dogs' characters, Francis said.

"We're a society who loves animals and loves our dogs," he said. "People respond to that."