“American Classic” arrives Sunday on MGM+ as a half-hour showbiz comedy boasting a passel of theatrical veterans, including top-billed Kevin Kline, Laura Linney and Jon Tenney.

It’s not that the series is classic (at least not yet), it’s what these show people do: Staging Thornton Wilder’s iconic American play “Our Town.”

“I would say,” Tenney, 64, said in a Zoom interview, “this is a funny, optimistic and addictive show about family, community and the power of art to transform our lives.”

“I second that,” added Nell Verlaque, who plays Tenney and Linney’s daughter.  “But similarly, I think the show is a great depiction of a family — and does it in an honest way, with humor and heart. We get to follow along these characters’ lives in a wonderful way.”

Kline’s Tony-winning Richard Bean follows a lengthy lineage of grand, grotesque “sacred monsters,” stars who can’t help but command the spotlight and dominate.

Having suffered a spectacular – and highly visible on social media – hissy fit following his badly reviewed “King Lear,” he’s stuck in exile in his small hometown until the glowing embers that illuminated his self-imposed catastrophe fade away.

“Is this mocking the egocentric ways of theater people in general, and this man specifically? I would think so,” Tenney said. “It explores the ways of the narcissistic actor, the self-involved egoist. Which is very funny — and there’s truth and honesty in that.

“But it’s presented (or at least we’ve tried to present it) in a way of how those things can steer people away from maybe another path to bring people together.

“Because ultimately it’s about a group of people putting on something of value and of beauty. But along the way, we see all the ways you can be distracted from that, whether through anxiety about money through not really listening to somebody. Or just the crazy family dynamics that exist in so many families: miscommunication, secrets.

“All the things that can separate you from yourself — and your better self in a way.”

Jon, the youngest of the Bean brothers, “is the peacemaker, as younger children sometimes are in volatile families,” Tenney said.

“It was Jon who stayed home and took care of things while his big brother went and sought fame and fortune. That all gets disrupted and confronted in the course of the show.

“Jon, who married the girl we both love, is now head chef at the theater we transformed into a dinner theater to keep the doors open.

“Of course, this affronts my brother’s artistic sensibilities. But I’ve steered my passion into wanting to congregate people, not just through the theater but through feeding them.

“Jon loves to cook as a communal activity to bring people together.”

“American Classic” premieres 2 episodes Sunday on MGM+

Kevin Kline as Richard Bean, Laura Linney as Kristen Forrest-Bean in “American Classic.” (Photo David Giesbrecht/MGM+)