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“The Ballad of King Henry” is a time warp.

The Elizabethan script by William Shakespeare is set in roughly 1860s Appalachia, but the musical play opens with its bandleader and narrator, Jeffrey Barg, acoustic guitar strapped over his shoulder, waxing on about Bob Dylan writing songs about Woody Guthrie.

“We’re all a little bit time out of mind, aren’t we?” Barg tells the audience. “We’re going to sing you the story of an old British monarch, sure, but really — like Bob and Woody — we’re just singing of paupers and peasants, princes and kings.”

“The Ballad of King Henry” receives its world premiere Friday, March 28, at the Players Club of Swarthmore and runs through April 5.

Consumers of Philadelphia news media may recognize Barg as the author of the longtime newspaper column The Angry Grammarian, which he turned into a musical last year. Here, he reimagines Shakespeare’s play about civil war, coming of age and Falstaffian debauchery as a cycle of Americana folk songs.

To Barg, Shakespeare and the American folk song tradition are two peas in a pod.

“Folk music is music that is in our DNA, those melodies we know and we don’t even know how we know them,” Barg said. “The same is true of Shakespeare’s writing. How many times a day do we quote Shakespeare without knowing it?”

The story is familiar: a rogue prince indulging in nefarious company as his father the king wages war with his neighbors. Barg wrote 17 songs to propel that narrative, from a foot-stomping drinking anthem “Sack O’Clock,” to a full-blown musical theater ensemble number “Civil Butchery,” to a solo by King Henry’s Scottish enemy, the Earl of Douglas, who wonders aloud why he is singing a country song.

“I could sing a lovely brogue, a drinking song — that would do,” sings The Douglas, as he’s named in this play. “Some kind of punk rock melody, make them shiver in their boots.”

“But all I’ve got is three chords, the truth and too much strum and twang,” he sings, a mash-up of the famous country music descriptor with the turbulent “sturm und drang” German artistic movement.

“Ballad” is performed upstairs at Player’s Club in its smaller black box theater set up cabaret style, with seating for about 35 people. The audience is forewarned that the chairs nearest the performance area may be drawn directly into the action.

“This piece does a very good job of making the music feel natural and communal,” Director Mike Sokolowski said. “It’s truly like a hootenanny.”

“I was at a chili cook-off the other day and there was a jug band. Someone had a guitar, harmonica, and someone had a jug and a bunch of shakers. They said, ‘We’re going to start playing. Come up and join us,’” he said. “This show does that kind of spirit very well.”

Barg’s lyrics keep Shakespeare’s text where possible, but he gave himself license to stray far and wide.

“We think of Shakespeare as poetry, but a shocking amount of his writing either doesn’t rhyme, or it doesn’t rhyme anymore,” he said. “Four hundred years ago it rhymed, but the way that we use language has changed in that time. That doesn’t lend itself terribly well to songs in 4/4.”

One song that stays true to the original text is the famous soliloquy by Prince Hal, in which he voices his intention to ultimately leave his life of indulgence and easy pleasure and pursue his leadership birthright.

Actor Scott Berkowitz sings the entire speech as a plaintive lament, massaging Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter into folk’s 4/4 time signature.

“Yet herein will I imitate the sun
That doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up
This beauty from the world.”

“It’s easily my favorite number in the show,” Sokolowski said. “It’s Barg’s best work.”

“The Ballad of King Henry” will run until April 5.