I don’t know about you, but I love it when I sit down for an evening of theater and discover something new, unexpected and zanily fun. That’s the case with Jenny Stafford’s Ahoy-Hoy, now onstage at Urbanite Theatre.

Chances are you’ve never heard of a man named Elisha Gray, who in 1876 nearly (or maybe did) beat Alexander Graham Bell to the invention of the telephone. That’s the mostly forgotten bit of history Ahoy-Hoy takes off from. (Apparently Bell wanted that term to be how callers greeted one another, rather than the less exciting “Hello.” You win some, you lose some.) We meet Gray (Amber McNew) in his lab, where his long-suffering assistant, Cornelius (Ben Williamson), is finding his own creative ideas (disposable rubber medical gloves, for example) scorned by the domineering and rude Gray.

Now that Gray’s electro-magnetic harmonic telegraph with piano keyboard has become such a hit (there’s one in every home, right?), all he can focus on is the telephone—well, and, sometimes at least, his unseen wife, Delia Minerva, who seems to be in a perpetual state of pregnancy. His archrival, Bell (Casey Murphy), is also hard at work on the device, when he’s not bogged down trying to create sheep who can birth more than one lamb at a time, or boasting about his rich father-in-law. He’s pretty insufferable, especially when showing off his form in 19^th-century workout wear at the gymnasia against Gray’s weaker build.

So far, so possibly true. But Stafford’s play veers into some crazily inventive directions of its own, with a race to the patent office and its employee, Wilbur (Ariel Blue), and, eventually, a 21^st-century twist I won’t divulge anything about because it would spoil the fun. Suffice it to say it has something do with legacy—a concept Gray is doggedly and insanely pursuing at the risk of his current existence. Moral here: Maybe let go of that whole legacy thing.

Stafford’s play delivers lots of good lines, set up by the way she’s conceived the characters to her own liking. And, under the direction of Celine Rosenthal, those lines hit the funny bone more often than not. The action is fast-paced, and the cast, especially McNew, is skilled with physical humor. It certainly helps that Stafford and/or Rosenthal decided to do some gender-switching in the casting here. Bell and Cornelius are played by actors born male, but Gray and Wilbur are portrayed by actors born female, and that lends a whole other level of ingenuity. (WBTT regulars will certainly see a new side of Blue in her performance here.)

Plus, they’re helped out by David Covach’s period suit costumes (especially love the gym gear); Jeff Weber’s set, which allows the actors to race from one end of the stage to the other and convince us it’s bigger than it is; and by the copious amount of 1876 facial hair. (Jonathan Hall is credited with the wigs here; if he also did the beards and mutton chops, more power to him.  The hair designs here are like another character.)

Ahoy-Hoy continues here through Nov. 29 as part of its National New Play Network Rolling Premiere. For tickets, call (941) 321-1397 or go to urbanitetheatre.com.