Hard times can have a systemic cleansing effect, contends "Saturday's Voyeur" playwright Allen Nevins. And even in brittle old Utah, things are a-changin'.

That's the message of the Salt Lake Acting Company wags who are preparing to make fun of Utah newsmakers -- and all the rest of us -- in the 31st annual edition of "Saturday's Voyeur," the country's longest-running made-from-scratch musical satire. Also unique among the country's nonprofit theater companies is how the musical production serves as a SLAC fundraiser, subsidizing the company's season of contemporary plays.

This year's story borrows a radio-hour format to chronicle Pleasant Grove's most dysfunctional fictional family, the Freebes. Or to borrow a mantra lifted from Republican Sen. Chris Buttars, "anything goes." (That's what Buttars infamously told a documentarian is what he thinks about the morals of the gay community.)

"This year didn't seem to be three or four things local that colored the entire year," said "Voyeur" director John Caywood. "There were things that happened that people might have forgotten. Al [Nevins] has done a good job of weaving those events of the entire year through the course of the story."

Unlike in some previous years, this edition of "Voyeur" relies on a more linear plot following the Freebes family. Some of the people and events that will be featured in "Voyeur" musical numbers and scenes include dancing queer missionaries, Amish hats and "hos," "Good Things Utah," the Hotter-Day Saints Calendar and the Utah woman who is a world-record-holder for her 35-inch fingernails.

The task of creating a fresh new script every year -- which takes about five months to write and five weeks to stage -- is shared by the show's co-creators, Nancy Borgenicht and Nevins. For 12 years, Nevins has written the libretto portion of the show. But this year, Borgenicht was busy serving as interim executive producer for the theater company after a major staff reorganization, so Nevins tapped longtime "Voyeur" actor Brenda Cowley for help with the script and lyrics.

For the story's narrative, Nevins found a vehicle in the form of an old-fashioned 1930s radio hour, from another era when America faced an economic crisis. "I wanted to say that we are experiencing a time of great social readjustment," he said.

A longer version of the script was turned over to Caywood, the six-year "Voyeur" veteran director, who worked with a crew of 11 actors to winnow the show to a manageable length. This year's crew of triple threats -- performers who sing, dance and act -- includes veterans such as Alexis Baigue, back for his ninth year, and Arika Schockmel, back for her seventh. The cast also includes "Voyeur" virgins; new blood, according to Caywood, helps freshen the show. "We have a large garden to pick from," Caywood said of Utah's veteran acting pool, many of whom have served time in "Voyeur" productions over the past 31 years.

Of course, after the "Voyeur" script was completed, the news cycle has continued to churn -- most notably with President Obama's mid-May announcement naming Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as the U.S. ambassador to China. Nevins plans to add a topical reference or two to the show, but joked that Utah's famously media-friendly, telegenic governor wouldn't get a bigger role unless "he admits he's a Democrat."