A low-rent super-villain falls in love with a girl from the laundromat, who falls for the narcissistic superhero, who keeps beating him up.

That just about sums up “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” — a musical originally written for the Internet — by Joss Whedon of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame.

Whidbey Island Center for the Arts will present the show onstage to launch its 2010-11 theater season, along with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling,” a reenactment of one musical episode of the wildly popular television series, performed by the WICA Chamber Singers.

The two-act evening of both pieces will open Friday, Oct. 15 and run through Sunday, Halloween night.

WICA calls the event the “Bad Horse Project,” and, just like Whedon, is trying something new in the spirit of contemporary culture ripe with video blogs, not-for-prime-time television and all things capable on the Internet.

“The story behind Dr. Horrible is another reason why we love the show,” said producer Deana Duncan, who is also the show’s artistic director.

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is a 45-minute musical blog-style romp that came out the 2008 writers’ strike. Whedon, a script writer in Los Angeles, and some of his fellow industry friends (including his two brothers) decided to use the Internet in a fun and innovative way, and as a way to keep working.

“The idea was to create something small and inexpensive, yet professionally done, in a way that would circumvent the issues that were being protested during the writers’ strike,” Whedon wrote during the brouhaha that surrounded the series’ run.

The experiment was lauded in the press and garnered a People’s Choice Award that year for Favorite Online Sensation, a Hugo Award for best dramatic short form presentation and a Creative Arts Emmy for outstanding special class short-format live-action program.

The support for the forward-thinking piece continues as “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is on the verge of becoming a major motion picture, or perhaps a Broadway play. The choice will be Whedon’s, and will be announced early next year.

WICA, in its effort to produce at least one original piece per season, sees the show as the perfect season opener.

“Dr. Horrible is more experimental than anything we’ve had on the mainstage to this point, in the fact that it was not written for the stage,” Duncan said.

“We’ve stayed true to the original online script, but adapted it to the stage with the use of multi-media tools and a constant vigilance to Whedon’s original vision.”

That vision includes a classic drama, comic-book style.

As the musical goes, Billy (Dr. Horrible) “video-blogs” about his twin goals to join the “Evil League of Evil” and to woo the fair Penny, an advocate for the homeless whom he met at the local laundromat. Dr. Horrible is foiled on both fronts, however, by his arch nemesis, the self-absorbed superhero Captain Hammer. Faced with the task of impressing the league, Billy must overcome his own incompetence and boggle the plan, kill the hero and get the girl. And in an added bonus, the audience can sing along as he attempts to do all of this.

Act Two on the mainstage will reveal WICA’s very own Chamber Singers, conducted by Robert W. Prosch, in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling.”

Penned also by Whedon, this single musical episode of the television show is often touted as the ultimate favorite by the cultishly fierce fans of the show, which ran for a total of seven seasons and took three Emmy Awards.

The episode was Whedon’s first foray into writing music for the show, and features a variety of musical styles from 1950s sitcom-theme music to rock opera and alternative rock. With songs such as Buffy’s hard-rock tribute to stake thrusts, “Going Through the Motions,” to the vampire Spike’s goth-metal rendition of “Rest in Peace,” Whedon combines the fantasy-like world of musical theater with a sardonic comment on pop culture. He pokes fun at everything from parking tickets, mustard-stain removal and climactic duels with supernatural folks with big, Broadway-style send-ups in this tongue-in-cheek tour de force.

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is directed by Jason Dittmer, with musical direction by Prosch. It features David Mayer as Billy/Dr. Horrible, Morgan Bondelid as Penny, and Michael Morgen as Captain Hammer.

The cast also includes Jacob Bloom, Zachary Schneider, Jim Simpson, Michael Thompson, Patsy Brereton, Michael Thompson, Megan Besst, Evan Hoke, Ambria Prosch, Daniella Rose, Zachary Schneider, Bristol Bloom, Cameron Baldwin, Tony Caldwell, Gwen Jones, Sophia Larson-Wickman, Jan Simpson.

Act Two’s Chamber Singers include Besst, Prosch, Bondelid, Tony Caldwell, Rob Scott, Linda McLean, Susan Sandri, Christina Parker and Kimberly Cerra.

Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:30 p.m., along with the Sunday Halloween show. Two Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m. Oct. 17 and 24.

Tickets for the show range from $12 to $16, with discounts available for seniors, military, youths and groups. Click here or call 221-8268 for tickets and info.