Baker University’ s theater department will perform “Lend Me a Tenor” from Thursday to Oct. 2 at Rice Auditorium on Baker’s main campus.

The shows from Thursday through Saturday are at 7:30 p.m. The Oct. 2 show is at 2 p.m. Admission is free.

The scene for playwright Ken Ludwig’s farce is the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, where world-famous Italian tenor Signor Tito Merelli is the guest artist in “Otello,” the highlight of the company’s most important fund-raiser for the 1934 season.

But Tito’s troubled life, his hot-headed wife and a “Dear John” letter mistaken as Tito’s suicide note sends everybody’s head swimming. The company stands to lose $50,000 in ticket sales unless they can find a way for the “dead” singer to deliver the performance of his life.