This is the feeling I want when I'm watching a musical: I want a tingle to start along my spine and build outward to goosebumps that is the visceral response to what my mind is telling me. I'm in the presence of a great star turn.

        It's a once-in-a-blue-moon feeling, although I've been lucky enough to experience it a couple of times this year. First there was Nathan Lane in The Producers on Broadway and now with Pam Myers in Gypsy at Playhouse in the Park.

        For everybody disappointed that Ms. Myers didn't triumph in her last local appearance, the title role in Hello, Dolly! at Hot Summer Nights (and no fault of hers), know that she's right back where she belongs — center stage and lifting us out of our seats.

        Gypsy is, of course, one of the great American musicals (by a team of legends: Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents), a classic show-biz tale based on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. But it's really about her Mama Rose.

        The ladies of Greek tragedy have nothing on Rose who has “dreams” that are nightmares for the people who love her.

        Driven by blind ambition, she creates a vaudeville act to showcase blond and doll-like Baby June (a terrifyingly good Jacqueline Probst), shunting sensitive Louise (Jamie Anderson) to the side.

        But vaudeville is in its death throes, the act is lousy, and Rose doesn't know when to shut up. When grown-up June (engaging Emily Rabon Hall) runs for her life, Rose is down but not out. She drags Louise even lower.

        The drama is set to one of the most tuneful scores ever written for a Broadway show (beautifully and brassily played here under the direction of Steven Gross). There are lots of big numbers for Rose and a couple of towering ones with which Ms. Myers brings down the house. (I counted 30-second ovations on opening night; the Broadway Series averages 10-15.)

        This is a first-rate Gypsy all around. Director Victoria Bussert lovingly crafts the drama as well as the musical numbers so that the core of the drama, the trio of Rose, Louise and Rose's long-suffering, ulcer-ridden boyfriend/agent Herbie, is all it should be.

        It gives Ms. Myers the opportunity to get deep inside quinmtessential stage mom Rose, so that for all she is relentless and blind to the needs of others, she is also warm, loving and vulnerable. It's a performance that goes right to our hearts.

        John Woodson is a perfect big-hearted mug as Herbie. Suzy Benzinger's costumes are dead-on throughout — gorgeous where they need to be, hilarious where they need to be — but never better than the too-tight cheap shirt and crummy bow tie. It's a case of clothes defining this man.

        Joan Hess is a terrific Louise, the shy, serious girl who blooms under the most unlikely circumstances.

        You can't have vaudeville and burlesque without specialty numbers. Hunter Bell does right by the Astaire-ish“All I Need Is the Girl,” and this rendition of the instructional“You Gotta Have a Gimmick” is a gem, delightfully performed by third-rate strippers. Rebecca Spencer, Kathleen France and Carol Schuberg let almost all of it hang out.

        The action plays out against one of set designer John Ezell's signature collage designs. This one evokes the era and a state of mind as well as their place on the lowest rung of the show-biz ladder.

        Word of mouth is going to sell this one out fast. Reserve now.

       Gypsy, through Nov. 16, Playhouse in the Park, 421-3888.

Music stars show their stripes
Jarvi family makes cover of magazine
Crises hit four U.S. symphonies
Statewide survey of arts revealing, dismaying to some
What's new in technology
Confident CSO tackles the cosmos
Exhibit displays historical panorama of photography
'Gypsy' a great star turn
MM&W's instrumentals funky, derivative
Paranoia strikes deep in the heart of . . . Loveland?
The 'Junkman'
West High reunion meets amid sadness
Here's how columnist makes his wine picks
Kentucky magistrate's office a weddings album
No. 1 restaurant tip: Service counts
Searching for the super salad bar
Get to it