An annual holiday show at the federal courthouse in Manhattan drew laughs, but no one is laughing now over the possibility of unfilled jobs and draconian budget cuts that court administrators say threatens the public's safety.

"Their secret plan is to ax the federal judiciary," one character said of Washington Republicans in the fictional story line during the 2011 Courthouse Follies.

By the end of the show, Republicans promised to restore "every penny" of the funding and even increase it when they realized they needed to turn to the courts to sue President Barack Obama over his policies.

A real-life ending to the budget crisis may be far less likely to entertain at Manhattan's U.S. District Court, where 39 trial judges — the largest group of federal judges in the country — preside over some of the nation's biggest criminal cases and wade through more than 12,000 lawsuits annually.

The courthouse has hosted nearly a dozen major terrorism trials, numerous mob cases and a slew of white collar prosecutions from lifestyle maven Martha Stewart to Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.