By Robert Taylor, EDGE Contributor

Producer John Bisceglie is spending a lot of his time promoting his new musical revue "SF Follies" for what it isn’t, as well as what it is. Don’t expect "Beach Blanket Babylon"--it’s not so PG-rated, he says. And don’t expect a Pier-39-style show-not with one character representing Dykes on Bikes.

"It’s not a dumbed-down, rah-rah fest for San Francisco-it’s got an edge," said Bisceglie, who is also the show’s writer, director and chief promoter. "SF Follies" opens Friday at the Actors Theatre, 885 Bush St., where Bisceglie said he expects it to run for at least nine weeks.

Bisceglie calls the show a musical that "roasts San Francisco’s history, people, culture, landmarks and neighborhoods to perfection." The 90-minute revue has a cast of 16 actors playing everything from Spanish settlers to a near-naked ’49er (a gold miner, not football player) to present-day political leaders.

Instead of a completely new score, Bisceglie has written new lyrics to songs such as "Shake Your Booty" and "Disco Inferno" to represent the 1906 earthquake and fire.

"We talk about Alcatraz, Playland at the Beach, Laughing Sal, the Golden Gate Bridge being built," he said. "We kind of sip the ’40s and ’50s, then go into the ’60s with the whole Beatnik movement and the Summer of Love.

"We do address the assassinations of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, but of course it’s not a joke," Bisceglie said. There’s a "Mama Mia" takeoff involving Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The show wraps up with an exploration of the city’s neighborhoods, including the Castro, and such contemporary issues as marriage equality. There’s a same-sex "Chapel of Love."

The show is a leap for Bisceglie from a couple of venues in San Jose, where he produced "San Jose Follies" and "San Jose Follies Strikes Back," for two years in a banquet room at the Bella Mia restaurant and the nearby Victory Theater, a converted lounge.

"We always thought the shows were bigger and balls-ier than San Jose would allow," he said.

Those San Jose revues were a stretch for Bisceglie as well, after 16 years producing children’s shows for Gilroy Community Services. The producer, now 38 years old, lived with his family in San Jose until he was 24.

You’d never know it from his effervescent, showbiz personality, but Bisceglie said he never planned a life in the theater. "They put me in the drama class by mistake-I wanted to be a farmer, to be in the FFA," he recalled. That was at Lincoln High School in San Jose, where he graduated in 1988.

"I was kind of traumatized--here were all these extreme personalities singing ’Hello, Dolly!’ But at the end of my freshman year the guy playing the rabbi in ’Fiddler on the Roof’ got kicked out for smoking pot or something behind the theater, and I got the part. When they shined the spotlight on me it was like, wow, somebody really noticed."

He went from the rabbi in "Fiddler" to the Tin Man in "The Wiz." "I thought, nothing can stop me now," he said.

Bisceglie began working with the San Jose Children’s Musical Theater, and got supporting roles in American Musical Theatre shows, including "Peter Pan" starring Cathy Rigby.

But what he may have enjoyed most were the little musical revues he created himself, such as the shows for the "wrap parties" after a major production ended. He moved on to Gilroy children’s theater where, he said, "they embraced my wacky, offbeat desire to do these things."

After the San Jose revues, Bisceglie ended up in corporate marketing jobs, and his "day job" now involves media development for Tribal Fusion, based in the East Bay. Bisceglie lives in Foster City, where--in time-honored theatrical fashion--auditions for "SF Follies" were held in his living room.

"I was overwhelmed with how great people were when we auditioned," Bisceglie said. He said 60 women and 25 men turned out, leading him to select a cast of 16--two or three times the size of most musical revues.

In the cast are Jenna Davi, Millie DeBenedet, Erica Gerard, Tenaya Hurst, Jessica Payne, Tiffany Joy Swenson, Mandy Wilczynski, Jujuana ShaRon Williams, Sarah Wintermeyer, Brett Hammon, Alan Hoshida, Christopher John Lindstrom, Ryan McBrearty, Jepoy Ramos, Brian Vouglas and George Patrick Scott.

All those performers-and an audience-are meant to fit in the 95-seat Actors Theater on Bush Street, on the fringe of Nob Hill. Bisceglie says ticket sales are brisk, and 10 shows are already sold out.

He’s making a special effort to partner with gay organizations, including the Golden Gate Business Association, New Conservatory Theatre, Theatre Rhino and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

While the show is meant to be all-inclusive, it also pokes fun at many aspects of life in San Francisco. "It has a little bite," Bisceglie said, "but it’s not mean-spirited."