Submitted photo Rust Belt Theater Company stages “Dating Sucks: The Musical” at Youngstown Playhouse’s Moyer Room. The cast includes, from left, Sarah Whitlatch, Caitlyn Murphy, Rachel Myers, Tina Duster and Carlos Rivera.

“Dating Sucks: The Musical” opens Friday for a two-weekend run at the Youngstown Playhouse, the first of four shows Rust Belt Theater Company will stage in the Moyer Room in 2026.

Several new musical numbers will be part of the revue-style musical by Robert Dennick Joki with orchestrations by Josh Taylor that focuses on dating in the 21st century. In addition to original songs, the show draws on real-life dating stories and incorporates dialogue taken from online dating profiles, mobile dating app conversations and audience contributions.

“I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of writing new material, because we haven’t done anything new really, since COVID, other than a few songs here and there,” Joki said. “Now that we’re doing things on a regular basis at the Playhouse, one thing that’s really good about that is that it’s a different kind of venue than performing at a bar, in that audience members are there specifically to see a show. I’m able to do things that are more traditional theater than what we’ve been doing for the last few years.”

The presentation may be more traditional, but “Dating Sucks” still is billed as a raunchy multimedia musical that leaves little to the imagination.

One of the new songs is “AI — Love You,” a love song written in the style of ChatGPT.

“I was inspired by everybody using AI, specifically to create artwork,” Joki said. “Over the last few months, I’ve seen a lot of people writing — and I’m saying writing in using quoting fingers — because when it comes to writing music using AI, people will just put a prompt into an engine, and then they’ll have an entire song, and they’ll say,’I wrote this.’ and it just cracks me up.

“Every time I read the lyrics, it does not sound like it was written by a human being. I’ve just read so many of these at this point that I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to write a song as if it was written by an AI bot, someone who is sourcing all of their material from the internet, instead of it coming from an actual living person.’ And so I decided to write a love song in that vein, and it turned out pretty funny, and the actors were all really excited to do it as well.”

The cast features Caitlyn Murphy, Sarah Whitlatch, PK Lankford, Lisa Torrence, Vasi Sfikas, Tina Duster, Lex Zelinsky, Rachel Myers, Carlos Rivera and Joki.

Another new song, “Three Wives,” was inspired by the musical “Six” and substitutes King Henry VIII for a more contemporary thrice-married government leader as its inspiration.

“One of my favorite musicals to come out in the last few years is ‘Six,'” Joki said. “I’ve seen it a couple times at this point. When we were working on ‘How the Drag Queen Stole Christmas,’ I mentioned in the dressing room that it might be funny to do something in the vein of ‘Six’ but about the three wives of Donald Trump.

“During winter break, I sat down and I was like, ‘I’m going to make this happen.’ It’s funny, it’s kind of scathing. I feel like now is the time artistically to be outspoken about things. It goes through each of Donald Trump’s wives, and it’s actually kinder to them than it is to him, I will say that.”

With Rust Belt’s previous home at Club Switch closing last May in a landlord-tenant dispute, the theater founder will use the black-box-style performance space at the Moyer Room for four productions this year.

The musical revue “Forbidden Youngstown” will be staged in July, the Christmas show returns in December and an overhauled version of “Godiva: A Burlesque Musical,” first staged in 2015, is planned in September. Much of the plot in “Godiva” dealt with things that were happening at the time. Joki said he shortened the original version, made it more timeless and changed some of the characters to make better use of its current pool of regular performers.

“It’s nice doing things at the Playhouse,” Joki said. “Even when we were back at the Calvin center, every single show I am in charge of every single thing. And it’s a little bit different when we’re at the Playhouse, because they have a staff. I don’t have to worry about hanging and focusing every single light. I don’t have to worry about making sure that the house is in order. These are all things that the Playhouse takes care of, and it’s nice for me to just focus on the artistic side.”

If you go …

WHAT: Rust Belt Theater Company — “Dating Sucks: The Musical”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday through Feb. 14 and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 15

WHERE: Moyer Room, Youngstown Playhouse, 600 Playhouse Lane, Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $15 and can be reserved by calling/texting 330-507-2358.