By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

There's enough talent in College-Conservatory of Music's On the Town to populate at least two Broadway shows - combine that with a creative team that nails the spirit of New York, New York circa WWII and what you get is the best musical on a Cincinnati stage so far this season.

On the Town is something contemporary audiences aren't accustomed to - a largely ballet-based dance musical, created way back in 1944 when great composer Leonard Bernstein and great choreographer Jerome Robbins were early in their creative collaboration.

Thanks to writing partners Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the show was also young, sassy, exuberant and in the moment. Together they created a New York where everybody danced through the streets, from three sailors on 24-hour leave to gray flannel suit-ers to street sweepers.

On the Town is a perfect musical to show off the triple threat that is CCM musical theater. They can dance, they can sing, they can act. This is a tall, tall order. As an ensemble show, a lot of people get their moment in the spotlight.

The show begins at dawn at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where Gabey (Eric Santagata), Ozzie (Matthew Risch) and Chip (Kyle McDaniel) begin an eventful 24-hour leave in the Big City (the time ticks off in the upper right hand corner of Thom Umfrid's energetic, Mondrian-inspired set.).

Gabey sees a poster of Ivy (Jennifer Bowles) in the subway and finding her becomes his quest. His buddies decide to assist.

Along the way, eager tourist Chip falls (without much resistance) into the eager arms of cab driver Hildy (Lindsay Pier) and together they have a great number in what is likely going to stand as the best stage prop of the entire 2003-04 theater season - a New York Yellow Cab with a set of springs somewhere between a bucking bronco and a trampoline.

Meanwhile, Ozzie's resemblance to prehistoric man attracts the attention of Claire (Emily Randolph Jones) who's trying to subdue her nymphomaniac tendencies (but not succeeding, lucky Ozzie.)

The tone, as you've probably figured out, can be irreverently, raucously funny. But that's balanced with melancholy - Gabey is unlucky at love through most of the show, and gets caught up in a dream ballet or two.

Director Aubrey Berg finds these fine emotional lines, getting the most out of the broad jokes and out of genuine heartache.

Then he pulls the elements together - that fast moving set (which seems to share the pulse of the city), a parade of fun and fabulous, character-defining Forties fashion by Rebecca Senske and Diane Lala's knockout choreography, which almost acts as dialogue.

Lala challenges her company of dancers who are grand in everything but the dream ballets where, too often, they make it looks as hard as it is. Our three sailors are swell, though, and Santagata is effortless. He has a fluidity that is the real deal and when he and Bowles share a dreamy duet, they show how it's supposed to be done.

Santagata is also a complete charmer as Gabey, grabbing the audience by the heart with "Lonely Town."

Only complaint - the cast was over-miked in the first act particularly, undermining the fine work by musical director Roger Grodsky and CCM's Philharmonia Orchestra.

Along with fine work from the three primary couples, On the Town features a couple of great comic turns: Madame Dilly, Ivy's dilly of a tippling singing teacher, is played for all she's worth by Lindsay Juneau and Claire's unfortunate (and overly understanding) fiance Pitkin is delightfully embodied by Benjamin Magnuson, who does double funny duty as an announcer.

On the Town, 8 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Corbett Auditorium, CCM, University of Cincinnati, 556-4183.