“Will you marry me?”

These four words will open the show Friday night for the play “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” However, the response isn’t scripted — the marriage proposal will be real, and the person being asked won’t know ahead of time.

The Des Moines Playhouse has decided a real marriage proposal is the best way to open the romantic comedy. Director John Viars says they decided to take advantage of the nature of the play by involving the audience directly.

“The public relations staff handled choosing the couple. They carefully sorted through the applications,” Viars says. “But they didn’t cheat, so it’s possible the person [being proposed to] will say no.”

Viars says they don’t always incorporate events such as this into opening night, but this particular play lends itself well to the idea.

“It’s such a special thing for us, we thought it would be fun to incorporate the audience more,” Viars says. “It all follows the theme of love and relationships.”

Viars says he has been wanting to direct “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” since he saw it in New York when it was new.

“I knew I wanted to do it as soon as it became available,” Viars says. “So I took advantage of the first opportunity I had.”

Viars has been with the Des Moines Playhouse for more than 20 years. During that time, he has directed more than 200 plays.

“I got involved with theater in high school, and I always loved it,” Viars says. “In college I decided to pursue what I love.”

Viars says the last time he acted was in college. Since then, he has done some writing, but directing is what he really loves.

“I’ve written a few short stories; no playwriting, though,” Viars says. “My creative outlet is directing.”

There are two men and two women performers in “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” Viars says for this show, the Playhouse decided to have professional actors, three of whom are from New York and one who is from Chicago.

Each actor/actress plays several characters of varying types within the play. In fact, Viars says every new scene has a completely new story and characters.

“It’s unbelievable — they play young children, older married people, young married people, people going on first dates, people in middle-life crises,” Viars says. “The thing that holds it together is the man/woman relationship.”

He says it would be hard to pick a favorite scene, because there are so many he thinks are wonderful. However, there is one which he says stands out.

“There is one scene where a family is going on a drive,” Viars says. “The father is really not the boss … but once he’s behind the wheel, he becomes the king. The actors create a car out of office chairs and hold it together between themselves. It kind of actually looks like a car. It’s wonderful.”

Because of the expenses of having professional actors, Viars says the crew has organized the whole play in much less time than usual.

“We put it all together in two weeks,” Viars says. “When you’re paying professional actors, you can only go so long without an income stream. It was a bit of a strain, but a good kind of tired.”