In so many ways, Cannibal! The Musical Live on Stage is a show that belongs on a college campus. And that's exactly where you'll find South Park co-creator Trey Parker's goofy, gross, hilarious musical about real-life Colorado cannibal Alferd Packer.

The Promethean Theatre, a professional company based at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, has turned a tale Parker wrote as a student film project into a sprawling, blood-spattered summer musical. Plenty of the humor is sophomoric (you could say the same about South Park), but, hey, it works. And by the time you've finished laughing or groaning, the cast is already selling the next nutty plot twist or bad joke.

Both Parker's 1993 movie and the stage version follow the misadventures of Packer, who led a band of miners into Colorado Territory on a search for gold in 1873.

Packer was the only man who returned, and eventually he confessed to a terrible story: Lost and starving, the men had eaten their dead companions.

Packer was put on trial and sentenced to death. But partly due to the efforts of crusading Denver Post reporter Polly Pry, he was sentenced at a second trial to 40 years and eventually made it out of prison.

The guy who (with Matt Stone) would later create Stan, Cartman, Kyle and Kenny puts his own spin on the story of an American cannibal. And what the creative team at Promethean has done with Cannibal! The Musical Live on Stage makes it even crazier, if that's possible.

So we get Packer (Matthew Chizever, a charismatic goofball) as a guy who is more than a little fond of his sassy, sexy horse Liane (Katherine Amadeo). His fellow gold hunters include Bell (Jeffrey Bower), who wants to use his bounty to start a church, and Noon (Patrick Jesse Watkins), a 19-year-old virgin who figures gold will help him get girls.

On their ill-fated quest, the guys encounter bombastic trapper Frenchy Cabazon (Andy Quiroga). He takes a shine to Liane, who unsurprisingly vanishes. (Parker named the fickle horse after an ex-girlfriend who cheated on him.)

Later, the guys run into a band of Utes. In the movie, the ``native Americans'' were Japanese; at Promethean, they're a band of way gay guys who speak in pig Latin. Yes, they're offensive stereotypes, but that's the way Cannibal! The Musical rolls.

Think of the show as Oklahoma!, only with blood, gleeful gore and unprintable language. Director Margaret M. Ledford goes for every last gross-out laugh, and the cast earns plenty of them. Chrissi Ardito contributes square-dance-influenced choreography, Ellis Tillman an array of crazy costumes and Daniel Gelbmann a set that allows ``blood'' to be mopped up quickly, one of this show's key requirements. Musical director/pianist Mark Fiore contributes his own little jokes, suddenly drifting into snippets of the themes from Bonanza and Law and Order, serving up a bit of Beat It and Stairway to Heaven.

The show's own music is relentlessly cheerful and unremarkable, except for a lovely solo beautifully sung by Anne Chamberlain as Polly Pry. The cast, which includes Ken Clement as a judge who makes fun of Ken Clement the actor, understands the key truth necessary to pulling off Cannibal! The Musical: Leave subtlety in the dressing room.

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