With performances this Friday and Saturday, Avenue Stage, Dorchester’s most highly acclaimed (as well as its only) community theater group, debuts it latest dinner theatre collaboration with the Dot 2 Dot Café at 1739 Dorchester Ave. near St. Mark’s church.

The ensemble is presenting a two-week run of the Christopher Durang farce “The Actor’s Nightmare,” which might just as well have been dubbed “The Playgoer’s Dream.” This fast-paced one-act has received hundreds of productions around the world since it debuted in 1981.

Conceived as a companion piece to the author’s award-winning short play, “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” (which has had many revivals here in Boston), this truly hilarious spoof details the plight of a hapless soul who is suddenly pushed on stage to replace an ailing actor.

Durang’s play was inspired by the well-known dream that many people in professional and amateur theatre have – that they must perform in a play that they have inexplicably never been to rehearsals for, and for which they know neither the lines nor the plot.

As to the actual plot, mild-mannered accountant George Spelvin finds himself attired as Hamlet and in the middle of one such “actor’s nightmare” – thrust into the lead role of a show about which he knows next to nothing.

As George bumbles through an ever-changing production that veers between Shakespeare, British comedy, and the Theater of the Absurd, he somehow manages to muddle through his scenes with a collection of deceased stage luminaries. But will he survive the chopping block as Sir Thomas More? 

This show, like the previous Avenue Stage successes, is directed by Michael O’Halloran, by day a Dorchester schoolteacher and Dot resident, by night, Avenue Stage director and co-founder.

The production stars the mild-mannered, but irrepressible Cambridge architect Geoffrey Pingree as the mild-mannered accountant, as well as fellow Avenue Stage regulars Eunice Simmons, Jennifer Jones, and Miss Mary Mac.

“The Actor’s Nightmare” is the fifth production of Avenue Stage, which has as its mission producing short works in a dinner theater/café setting for the Dorchester audience. The company premiered in November 2013 with Lanford Wilson’s “A Betrothal”; continued the journey with a production of David Storey’s “Home” in 2014; the original work “Shared Bath, Full English” in 2015; and Arthur Miller’s “I Can’t Remember Anything” last spring.

Dot 2 Dot Café is a cozy restaurant on Dorchester Avenue, where the premise is to make everything from scratch. It is headed by a bona fide London-trained Cordon Bleu chef, Karen Henry-Garrett. Offering gourmet breakfasts, lunch specials, and dinners with events, the cafe hosts Open Mics, live music, art shows, kids cooking classes, knitting brunches, and book clubs.

“The Actor’s Nightmare” will run five performances only: October 28 and 29, and November 3, 4, and 5. (Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.) Tickets are priced at $32 including a two-course dinner.

Dinner seating is from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., with the play beginning at 7:45 p.m.

Tickets may be purchased online at avenuestage.org, or by calling Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006. More details about menus, tickets, and further information about the show can be found at avenuestage.org and dot2dotcafe.com.