The joint is jumping when I turn up at the Queanbeyan Uniting Church Hall to see Queanbeyan Players rehearsing their next production, Dolly Parton’s musical 9 to 5.

Choreographer Lauren (Laurenzy) Chapman is putting the three main characters and the chorus through their paces, while music director Jen Hinton leaves the accompanying job to pianist Brigid Cummins as she steps aside to tell me about the band that will play in the coming show at The Q.

As usual, the players – most of them on the youthful side – are enjoying themselves. The company has gained a reputation for community productions of musicals we might otherwise not get to see. For example, American Idiot and Bubble Boy in the past year.

They’ve also beaten Canberra to the post by presenting the first Canberra-region mainstage production of this famous Dolly Parton musical almost a month before the Canberra Theatre brings in another Parton hit, Here You Come Again.

But 9 to 5 is much more famous. Based on the 1980 film of the same name, with music and lyrics by Parton and a book by Patricia Resnick (who co-wrote the screenplay), the show follows Violet, who has worked hard for 15 years in the offices of Consolidated Industries but is continually passed over and mistreated by less experienced and incompetent men.

Violet, Doralee, and Judy become friends, commiserate, and then “accidentally” poison and kidnap their sexist pig boss, Franklin Hart Jr., overthrowing the patriarchy and improving their working conditions.

There’s also a peculiar subplot involving Roz, who lets the side down by having a huge crush on Hart.

Back at rehearsal, Hinton can hardly wipe the smile off her face as she explains how she has called in a few favours to assemble a 12-piece band with horns, saxes, and a “big brassy sound”.

At this point there appears to be a dead body on the stage – but that’s all part of the comic-book-style plot, and all is not what it seems.

During a noisy break while the actors warm up their voices, director Sarah Hull ushers me into a side room to explain why she wanted to direct 9 to 5.

“I’m passionate about giving opportunities to people in plays,” she says. “What appealed to me was the variety of roles for women of different ages. All the main characters could as easily be played by women in their 30s and upwards as by younger people. It was written with no special body types in mind.”

Sure, there are three central roles – the same ones played to the hilt in the film by Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton herself – and they get the “big sings”. But otherwise, it’s very much an ensemble piece, not unlike Keating! The Musical, which Hull also directed for Queanbeyan Players.

The exaggerated plot, she notes, lends itself to slapstick, but the underlying themes are very serious and relevant today, raising questions of sexism and job security. But if 9 to 5 has a feminist plot, it’s worn very lightly by the characters.

It’s exactly what you’d expect from a considerable figure like Parton, famous for her philanthropic work supporting childhood literacy, disaster relief, and COVID-19 research. She’s no “dumb blonde” – or at least not an accidental one, having said, famously: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”.

As for the hits in the show, Hull says: “The show is full of bangers, like the title number 9 to 5, or Shine Like the Sun, which closes Act One, or Backwoods Barbie, sung by Doralee, or Judy’s big number, Get Out and Stay Out. But then there’s a lovely still number like I Just Might, sung by Judy, Doralee, and Violet.”

With a hefty cast of 31, Hull says she is well supported by Chapman’s inventive choreography and by musical veteran Hinton, who has great contacts in the community.

The set will be relatively simple, mostly suggesting the main office and Hart’s office, but the costumes, she hints mysteriously, will “end up being colourful, in reflection of the changing feelings in the office”.

As we emerge from the interview, the vocal warmup has reached the stage of very loud “Brrrrrr-ing” before Chapman lines the cast up again to dance around with files in hand – just as you’d do in any office.

Queanbeyan Players’ 9 to 5 The Musical, The Q, Queanbeyan, October 31-November 9.