AS THE WORLD TURNS's Van Hansis will be pulling double duty this December, playing good boy Luke, and taking a very different slant on the stage in an adaptation of the popular video game Dance Dance Revolution.

Soap Opera Weekly: Is Dance Dance Revolution as awesomely crazy as it sounds like it is going to be?
Van Hansis: Yes, it is. It's this play that I workshopped three years ago at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, with an awesome director named Alex Timbers, who has his own theater company which I can't pronounce — I don't speak French — Les Freres Corbusier. He's like 29 years old, and he's already won an Obie. He's done some really incredible shows. He has garnered a lot of attention in New York, and a couple of his shows have been taken to Los Angeles. This is a show that he wrote and directed. We were all at Williamstown three years ago, right before I started ATWT, and we did a much smaller version of it. Now it's being brought to New York. It's pretty awesome. It's kind of like Death Race meets Flashdance.

Weekly: Death Race meets Flashdance?!
Hansis: Yeah. It's set in the future, with lots and lots of foul language. (laughs) So it's a lot of fun. It's great to work with these guys again, who have been my friends for a really long time, and it's great to be doing something that is so out there and something I don't get to do on a regular basis. It's pretty hilarious and incredibly raunchy.

Weekly: It's got to be fun to break out and do that. You get to curse and be crazy and do the things that Luke doesn't do.
Hansis: Exactly. Also, it's important for me to be onstage. When you're onstage, it helps your work on the soap. It's a lot of fun, and I love the sense of community in theater. I try to do at least one [production] a year. This will be a really fun show. I think it will have some good response.

Weekly: I'm sure a ton of people will come to see you in it.
Hansis: If people have weak stomachs and don't like raunchy language, then I would say to not come to this show. If you can handle some dirty words and some strange situations, then, by all means, I think [you're] going to like it. It's also a musical, which is weird for me, because I don't do musicals.

Weekly: That just adds an extra layer of awesome to it for me.
Hansis: It adds an extra layer of care for me(laughs).

Weekly: You're not into the whole dancing and singing aspect of it?
Hansis: No, I'm dancing and singing in it. I knew that would be part of it. They knew how I danced and sang, and I still am doing it (laughs). It's so out there that it doesn't really matter that you don't have the strongest dancers or singers. They do have a core of 12 incredible dancers who back up the actors, who don't really dance as much. But we all hold our own. We all do pretty well.

Weekly: As long as you're not on roller skates like Xanadu, you'll be okay.
Hansis: Yeah. No roller skates in this one. We do have trampolines, though!

Dance Dance Revolution runs from Dec. 3 to 20 at the Ohio Theater, at 66 Wooster Street (between Spring and Broome Streets) in New York, N.Y. Tickets are $18. Visit www.dancefreedomforever.com for more information.