How does a nice Jewish boy show his love for his grandmother? He might buy a dozen roses for her, or he might read a schmaltzy poem at her 75th birthday party. Or, if he’s like Marc and Jay Sand, he might write a two-hour indie rock opera about making love to chinchillas.

OK, so The Broken Hipsters isn't entirely about making love to chinchillas. But that is a favorite subplot of the cast and crew, whose diverse résumés include Buried Beds, Hot Mango Chutney and Tony and Tina’s Wedding.

Megan Wendell plays Liza Abbott, a photographer who graduates from college, breaks up with her boyfriend and moves back home with her recently widowed father and her chinchilla-loving older brother. And that's where the story begins.

"Liza is just trying to figure out what her purpose in life is," Wendell says over e-mail, "and she needs to learn to be less self-involved."

Wendell, the singing/guitar-playing half of The Method and Result, doesn't relate to Liza's search for purpose.

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life at a very young age," she says. Like several of her castmates, that meant performing.

"I think I was in every school and community production in [Bangor, Maine] for about eight years," she says. "Everyone thought I was going to leave town and be a star on Broadway, but then I latched on to the electric guitar and now I'm an obscure indie musician instead."

"She had one of the best voices I've ever heard," says Marc.

Wendell accepted the part before she knew what she was getting into. "I wasn’t sure I’d be able to kind of let go of my inhibitions and really embrace the goofiness of the performance," she says, "but I was surprised that I was able to loosen up fairly easily."

And, she jokes: "Who doesn’t fantasize sexually about chinchillas? Um, I mean, the plot’s really over-the-top at times, but I think there are some serious overtones in there too."

In seeking her path, Liza finds The Broken Hipsters, a band of geriatric riot grrls led by Gertie Feldman (played by Jessica Marcus).

Radical grannies fighting for social justice were always part of the brothers’ premise, which came to them in a fit of brainstorming on a road trip. Marc then wrote a screenplay called Assisted Living, which t

The Sands' grandmother and her new community provided some inspiration. "Gertie, the leader of the grandma punk band, seems a lot like my own grandmother," Marc says. "I always admired her for her strength and courage. If there were a revolution in America, I thought she would be a good leader because she's not afraid of anything."

"We wrote Tugger and Gertie to parallel my own relationship with my grandmother," he says. "I feel like she is very bold, where I am much more timid."

For the past two years, Marc and Jay have played in The Sand Family -- along with bassist Ben Morgan, violinist Harmony Thompson and drummer Samantha Barrow -- whose silly but solid sound shaped the show. (For the rock opera, This Radiant Boy's Bucky Lang fills in on drums.)

Despite sharing a band, the Sands hadn't co-written anything before The Broken Hipsters. "Essentially, we wrote every word of the show together," says Jay, 31. "Each gut-wrenching, painstaking word."

In another way, the show was a return to form for the Sands. Growing up in Harrisburg, they racked up acting experience. "I was in about a hundred plays from the time I was 5 to 17," says Marc, now 28. "If there were ever a part for a slightly disturbed, or perverted, neurotic Jewish boy, I probably played it when I was young."

"We knew the lyrics would be pretty darned silly so we wanted to make sure the plot was straightforward enough to understand that the audience wouldn't have trouble following along," says Jay, who also directs the show. "So, in that way, it's fairly traditional. In every other way, it's kooky as all get out."

Judging by the reaction at a recent preview, The Broken Hipsters taps into a communal desire to sing along to ditties about medicinal marijuana ("Medicare"), love-hate relationships ("Uterus," "Pants") and getting kicked in the balls by religious figures ("Nuns").

"Generally, people have beenexcited by the fact that we've found a way to write a pop song about a guy who's in love with a chinchilla," Jay says.

She-Haw singer/guitarist Amy Pickard attended Penn with the Sands years ago, but she didn’t know them well until Jay asked her to join the troupe. "I love that the guys 'are these wildly idealistic, earnest, independent people' who poke as much fun at themselves as everybody else," she says. "And I love the absurdist treatment of corporate greed."

After several years away from theater, Pickard returned last spring with Pig Iron Theatre Company’s James Joyce is Dead and So is Paris. Now she’s playing Dusty Bowers, a tough cop who was raised by terriers. Dusty works for an evil orthopedic shoe salesman who plans to put babies -- played by four hairy, diaper-wearing men -- to work in diamond mines. Pickard stretches to find parallels between herself and her role.

Dusty "responds well to positive reinforcement," Pickard says. "And she’s sort of fickle and horny. Those seem universal."

Rich Wexler, who pulls double duty as Liza’s ex-boyfriend, Kenny, and Dusty’s canine love interest, Señor Puppyhead, has a more material relationship with his role. "As a puppeteer, there is some strange familiarity to be surrounded by fur," he jokes.

The Broken Hipsters’ quirkiness appeals to Wexler, who also performs in the Dumpsta’ Players’ monthly genderfuck lip-synch revue. "The theater world I grew up around was so mainstream," he says. "If I see another version of Grease, I’ll kill myself."

Todd Young, who plays Liza’s father, hadn’t been in a play since a sixth-grade Christmas pageant. Between leading his own band and playing keyboards in EDO, he’s been busy. But now he’s catching up with the theater bugs.

"I’m playing the piano in the band, I have an electric guitar solo, I have five songs I sing in, I have a dance solo -- and I can’t dance -- and if that weren’t enough for one person, I’m also producing the original-cast soundtrack recording in my studio," he says.

"What’s not to like? It’s got everything! Sex, drugs, babies, rock ’n’ roll," Young says. "Plus, it hearkens back to the rock musicals of the ’70s, only this would never happen in the actual ’70s. I’m mean, we got a guy making love to a chinchilla up there! Let’s see Godspell do that!"