“One Long Earring,” a play about a lesbian band from the 1990s looking to reunite after almost 30 years, has been called the lesbian “Spinal Tap.” It’s coming to the Crystal Ballroom at the Somerville Theatre this Sunday.

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The cheeky comedy began as the pandemic brainchild of writer and producer Faith Soloway and their partner, the performing artist known as Bitch. They imagined the band’s former leader trying to coax band members to reunite for a charity gig to save the feminist coffee house that gave them their start. In streaming scenes featuring cameos by the Indigo Girls and Kate Pierson of the B-52s, the potpourri of personalities and past grievances comes to light.

The stage version of “One Long Earring” shows the six returning band members tuning up and airing out grudges during a rehearsal session. The fictional band was flirting with fame in the ‘90s, when they played “a disastrous performance at a big festival called Labia Majora Fest,” Soloway said. “They broke up and have literally never seen each other since … ”

While “One Long Earring” is a bawdy comedy at its core, Bitch and Soloway also explore what happens to women who were once at the forefront of social justice, and who now find themselves older and less relevant. Soloway calls their character  “a problematic White lady,” as the band’s members of color push back on White members’ blind spots on race.

The play is co-produced by Ian Brownell, co-owner of the Somerville Theatre, and is scheduled to get a one-night run at Joe’s Pub in New York City after the Somerville show. Joe’s is the cabaret venue that’s part of the legendary Public Theater established by Joseph Papp in the late 1950s. Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse are among the performers who worked out their acts at Joe’s.

Past collaborations between Brownell and Soloway brought the ribald social comedies “Miss Folk American” and “Jesus Has Two Mommies” to the Somerville Theatre.

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Bitch and Soloway have deep ties to the performance troupe community, which was how they met. Soloway got their start in improv at Second City Chicago and, more recently, co-wrote the Amazon series “Transparent” with their sibling Joey; the show is based on their father’s transition to a woman named Maura. As a member of the punk queercore duo Bitch and Animal (Animal Prufrock), Bitch opened for The Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco in the 1990s and early aughts. Now, Bitch and Soloway live in Jamaica Plain. Soloway now works at Urban Improv —  an educational theater program aimed to teach young people emotional coping and conflict resolution skills — and Bitch records and tours as a solo act. Their last album, “Bitchcraft” (2022) is a pointedly personal project that weaves together themes of gender identity, feminism, and aging.

The rest of the play’s reunion cast includes local artists Pamela Means, Anne Stott (whose character, Eve Brownell — the most uptight character in the cast — is a cheeky play on their co-producer’s persona), Melissa Ferrick and Merle Perkins.

The band’s name comes from a popular, asymmetrical lesbian look in the 1990s: one side of the head shaved, with a single, dangling earring. Bitch tags the look as the era’s “lesbian trope,” allowing queer women to claim both sides of the binary equation. “The ‘One Long Earring Goddess’ is something that we all came up with as a female form that takes on masculinity as well,” they said.

Now, the goal of the Somerville and New York shows, Brownell said, is to hone the developing act and take the show to the next level — a long run at a theater.

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