Over a three-decade career, prolific playwright and producer Ronnie Larsen has created dozens and dozens of plays, and even a couple of musicals.

But for his latest work, he upended his usual process. 

For “Now & Then,” a critically acclaimed 2018 musical, composer Dennis Manning approached Larsen with a collection of country music-inspired songs and Larsen imagined the story about the trials and tribulations of a gay couple over several decades. 

He did the same thing for “Come Out, Come Out,” a nostalgic show about the lives of gay men in the city during the 1920s. Larsen began researching songs from the period (“The naughtier [double entendre], the better,” he said.) and then built the show around his favorites. 

The idea for “One More Yesterday,” premiering this weekend at the Foundry, started with a story, not the music. The plot started to come together over four years ago, inspired by the work of Carbonell-winning actress Angie Radosh, who stars. 

“It’s the story of a Broadway actress, Lidia Taylor, who has won three Tony awards, but never achieved ‘star’ status,” explained Larsen. “Her career has dried up and she’s living on nothing. She just wants to work again, to get a second chance.” 

Lidia’s agent gets her cast in a campy, no-budget horror movie, “The Vigilante Granny,” and everything changes, he added. But “One More Yesterday” is a serious musical and not an ode to “Sunset Boulevard” or the desperate choices of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis later in their careers. 

For the music, Larsen turned back to Manning and enlisted the services of music director Bobby Peaco to add the Broadway touch to Manning’s lyrical songs. 

“It’s an interesting process: Dennis writes the song and then passes it to Bobby, who turns it into a show tune. Dennis records it, then Bobby records it and then we hand it off to the actors. It’s not a country-western song by the time we’re done, it’s a Broadway ballad,” Larsen said. 

Larsen assembled an A-list cast and crew for the show, including Carbonell winners Radosh and actor Avi Hoffman, set designer Preston Bircher and choreographer Oren Korenblum. Music director Peaco is a Carbonell nominee. 

He’s also not sparing resources. The show has a $100,000 budget over a six-week run, but Larsen’s not too worried. 

“I would write a scene and [Angie and Avi] would read it and I was just left speechless. They understood the rhythms of the characters immediately. And Angie is so connected to the material. She told me she knew this character,” Larsen added. 

But, then again, he’s also careful not to jinx the show: “You never quite know what you have until you get to the run-throughs and then an audience.” 

If the buzz following a sneak peak performance last week before a live audience is any indication, Larsen just may have another hit on his hands.