Amanda Randles has been scrounging around for bones lately.

She needs a lot of them, as they’re a key plot element in “Incorruptible: A Dark Comedy About the Dark Ages,” a play she is directing about down-and-out monks who pawn off bones from the monastery’s graveyard as pricey relics in order to raise money to serve the poor.

“Incorruptible” premieres 7 p.m. Friday, May 6, at the Chilkat Center. Performances are also scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 7, and on the same schedule May 13-14.

The play, written by Michael Hollinger, is set in 12th-century France. The plot sounds morbid, but the tone is far from it.

“I love this play,” Randles said. “It’s not deep and meaningful. It’s fun and playful and silly, and some of the cast have been describing it as a little ‘Monty Python’-esque.”

Madeline Witek, who plays Marie, said the play is rife with word play, puns and slapstick humor. In that respect, it’s quite different from Lynn Canal Community Players’ most recent production “The House of Bernarda Alba,” an intense melodrama by Federico Garcia Lorca that Witek also performed in.

“I like the fact that the author’s note says that this sort of thing really happened, which is true. It was really easy to pass off bones as relics, and you could make a lot of money,” Witek said. “The monks (in this play) have so little money they have to turn people away. That’s their dilemma. They can do this morally corrupt thing, but then they wouldn’t have to turn people away.”

Marie is a young woman traveling with a one-eyed man named Jack, her “husband of sorts.” Marie and Jack, played by Riyan Stossel, travel as minstrels to make money. It is revealed that Marie had a previous wealthy husband who died.

“It’s clear Marie wants to secure a better life for herself than as the prostitute her mother is forcing her to be,” Witek said.

For much of the play, Witek must play dead on stage, which she found challenging. “I get carried around and fought over and lots of things happen in front of me that I would normally respond to, but I can’t because I am pretending to be dead,” she said.

Ronnie Bradley is making his acting debut in “Incorruptible” as Brother Felix, a novice monk. Felix joins the monastery after losing a loved one, and is torn about the abbot’s decision to sell bones to other monasteries and nunneries with the lie that they belonged to saints.

“He puts up resistance toward the idea to begin with, but he is very devoted to his vows. He follows what the father says to do because he is under him,” Bradley said.

Director Randles approached Bradley and asked him to read the script because she thought he would excel in the role, though he had no previous acting experience.

“I’m glad that I got the cast that I got. They are great. I enjoy rehearsing with them and they do a great job and they help me out a lot,” Bradley said.

Other cast members include: Mark Zeiger as Charles, the abbot of the monastery; John Hunt as Brother Martin, Charles’ second in command; David Routh as Brother Olf, a novice monk; Judith McDermaid as a village peasant woman; and Suzanne Newton as Agatha, the abbess of Bernay.

Randles directed plays for the semi-professional Denali Drama company in Talkeetna, and directed in college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

She scheduled “Incorruptible” to run for two weekends to allow reviews of the play to spread by word of mouth.

“If we have those two weekends, there’s a chance for people to sit over beers and talk about it. Word of mouth in any small town is the best kind of advertising we can have,” she said.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $7 for students and $35 for families.