By Carolyn Hayes Harmer

In 1970, an emerging writer published a seminal young-adult novel of a preteen girl figuring out school, fitting in, boys, religious faith, and her developing body. The book was groundbreaking for its forthright discussion of sexual development, particularly the topic of menstruation. In 1974 came another writer’s first published novel, which told the story of a different schoolgirl grappling with some bloody similar religious, social, and pubertal troubles. Although thematically comparable, that book was notable for…different reasons. Then in 2014, a pair of Michigan playwrights decided these two just had to get together.

Judy Blume, meet Stephen King. And brace yourselves for the Ringwald Theatre world premiere of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Carrie.”

For the concept alone, playwrights Lisa Melinn and Dyan Bailey deserve adulation. Mashed together, these two distinctive tales are as complementary as peanut butter and jelly. Their adaptation largely follows the milestones of the Judy Blume book, but vastly reimagines the girl-talking meetings of the secret club the Four Pre-Teen Sensations to replace Margaret with new girl Carrie White (Meredith Deighton). How would the young confidantes’ frank dialogues change if one of them, say, had a demented, ultra-fundamentalist mother with dangerously wackadoo notions of sin and sexuality and a hankering for child abuse? How would sheltered, isolated Carrie’s fortunes fare if she could be part of a gang at long last, and buy her first bra and go to a boy-girl party in a classmate’s basement?

Here, the central girl characters operate together at a heightened dynamic of catty candor. As the group’s ringleader, Nancy (Brittany Michael) maintains an air of worldly pretense, rolling her controlling tendencies and her mother’s skanky influence into an outlandish persona of queen bee proto-tramp. DeAnnah Kleitz-Singleton excels as the perennially hectored, cookie-hoarding Gretchen, both in brooking dissent loud enough for the audience to hear and in subsequently backing down, and tomboy Janie (Katy Schoetzow) is farcically unsubtle in telegraphing her Sapphic leanings. Meanwhile, Deighton’s Carrie hones a kind of skittish schizophrenia, innocently chirping her mother’s backward lessons one moment, then spitting invective or manifesting uncontrolled telekinetic powers the next.

The production is every inch the 1970s, from groovy costume dresses and wigs (Melinn) to configurable set pieces (Gwen Lindsay) adorned with ripped-from-a-paperback designs. The design team also can’t ignore the massive influence of the 1976 film “Carrie,” pulling out lookalike costume pieces, strewing religious-icon properties (Schoetzow), borrowing familiar music cues (Bailey), and reserving an entire corner of the set for the looming-crucifix horror show that houses Carrie’s mother, Mrs. White (Lauren Bickers).

The scenes with Carrie and her mother may be the best preserved from the source, which is an absolute godsend, because Bickers needs no enhancements to bring fireworks to this bat-guano crazy role. The result is less performance than possession, from full-throated invocations to histrionic crazy eyes; even her lying in wait is a laugh riot. No doubt the deck was always going to be stacked in favor of this outsized character, but the hilarity of Bickers’s insistent command readily ensures that nothing else in this show comes close.

Ringwald newcomer Joel Hunter is a capable utility player, portraying all the show’s men with everything from popular-boy suave to geeky exuberance. Beyond writing, designing, and also directing, Bailey appears onstage as well, both as a thick-skinned, resented early bloomer classmate and in a brief boozy stint as a grownup.

Although the laughs in store are big and unapologetically ribald, the production does suffer some inconsistencies, with fits and starts that most often surround the musical interludes. Yes, these characters sometimes pause to reflect in (period-appropriate) song, intoning intact or gently tweaked lyrics to the sound of a karaoke track. The song choices are passable, and one or two are simply ingenious for their comic juxtaposition. Yet more often than not, the audience is treated to a sparse handful of relatively funny discoveries dragged through a three-minute span of vocally unremarkable filler and clumsy aping of Schoetzow’s choreography, heaving this otherwise breezy piece just over the one-hour mark.

In the Ringwald’s campy, parodic pantheon, the rock-solid premise of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Carrie” makes it another worthy entry. This wild – and wildly excessive – show lovingly desecrates what was a hugely formative pop culture touchstone for many women, while paying seasonally appropriate homage to a horror classic. Despite some disorder and energy dips, the bulk of the content is strong and purposeful, the outlandish, slapdash humor is in good form, and crackpot darling Mrs. White is always just around the corner, waiting to jolt the proceedings with a welcome Bible to the face.