Cease and Desist: A Super Meta-Musical will hold a private table reading January 30. The in-development musical features a book by Paul Iacono and Marc Kudisch, and lyrics by Iacono. Rachel Klein is directing.

And the team has assembled a starry cast for this early performance. Kudisch and Iacono will both perform themselves, alongside Brenda Braxton, Andy Karl, Josh Lamon, Lauren Molina, Terence Archie, Jason Gotay, Sean Allan Krill, Leenya Rideout, John Bolton, Andrew Bova, and Eddie Korbich.

Press notes describe the work as "a genre-bending superhero musical that erases the line between hero and villain, exposing the messy, human shades of gray in all of us." Apparently the titular "cease and desist" is also horrifyingly real for Iacono and Kudisch, who received one "for their previous genre-themed show." Press notes are vague on details, though it feels likely that this is in relation to a Batman-themed Gotham Rogues musical that the duo has previously worked on and presented in performances at Joe's Pub. That show, most recently performed last October, collects the various villains from the iconic caped crusader, ultimately putting Batman himself on trial. The show had always been described as an "unauthorized Batman parody musical," though loosely adapted from an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

Cease and Desist, on the other hand, will follow the heroes and villains of New City as they're transported to an "interdimensional purgatory."