For her latest play, local actress Rine Nguyen was given homework that many college students would love: she had to watch “The Simpsons.”

In VCUarts Theatre’s new show “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play,” the Virginia Commonwealth University senior portrays Bart Simpson, among other characters. Written by Anne Washburn, “Mr. Burns” takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the world no longer has electricity.

“It’s really about the passage of time and what happens when a group of people choose not only to survive in a world without electricity, but actually live,” explains Nguyen, a 21-year-old theater performance major and longtime “Simpsons” fan.

In the play’s first act, a group of survivors gather around a campfire to swap stories and compare notes on who they’ve met since the power went out. The group eventually begins to recount the 1993 “Cape Feare” episode of “The Simpsons.” A sendup of the 1962 movie “Cape Fear” and its 1991 remake, the episode’s plot revolves around Sideshow Bob trying to kill Bart Simpson yet again.

Recounting the cartoon brings the play’s characters a feeling of normalcy.

“In order to find some sort of meaning or hope in the chaos, they’ve started telling stories to one another,” explains director Paul Takacs of “Mr. Burns.” “They tell stories of ‘The Simpsons’ episodes from memory and they’re trying to remember it in all of its vivid detail.”

The play’s second act portrays the same group of people seven years later.

“That group has now evolved into this traveling acting troupe that is putting on these episodes as entertainment with the commercials that would accompany the episode as well,” Takacs says. “There’s competition among acting troupes. This has become a way of living in a post-apocalyptic society.”

The show jumps 75 years ahead for its third act. The “Cape Feare” episode of “The Simpsons” has morphed to become the founding myth of a civilization. Bart Simpson has been elevated to become an archetypal hero in the Joseph Campbell sense.

“It has become this religious rite,” Takacs explains. “It’s about how we reach for story in times of trouble. It’s about how we commodify story, and how story can eventually evolve into something even bigger than that.”

Touching on themes of storytelling, myth and the meaning of community, “Mr. Burns” is deceptively deeper than it might first appear. In a 2013 review, The New York Times’ Ben Brantley wrote that the play was “downright brilliant” and would “leave you dizzy with the scope and dazzle of its ideas.”

“It has a much more powerful message beyond ‘The Simpsons’ than people might expect,” Nguyen says. “I hope when people leave they won’t be talking about ‘The Simpsons’ so much as what it means to be part of a community.”

Takacs agrees.

“It is so much more than what its package suggests it is,” he says. “If you want to see some theater that’s going to surprise you, that’s going to take you on a ride that you probably didn’t expect, this is the one to check out.”

VCUarts Theatre’s “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play,” plays Feb. 26-March 1 at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave. For more information visit arts.vcu.edu or call 804-828-2020.