Review: Dance-happy '42nd Street' will have you tapping your toes

If you feel the earth shake this week, blame Broadway in Tucson.

The company has brought the road show of the Broadway musical “42nd Street” to Centennial Hall; it continues through Sunday.

At Wednesday’s opening, as many as 40 tap dancers were on stage at once, shuffling, stomping and making music as they tapped as though their lives depended on it.

They were fast, slow, high and low as the young cast of this non-Equity tour dazzled the audiences with their footwork.

And it’s that footwork — combined with the music — that are the greatest joys of this play. The backstage musical about a small town girl who moves to New York in 1933 in hopes of becoming a star has a thin storyline. Very thin.

But that dancing is sublime.

The curtain comes up slowly, and your first glimpse is of those feet tapping out a thunderous rhythm.

The scene is a load of hoofers auditioning for a new Broadway play, and it’s led by Lamont Brown as Andy. Watch him. He’s good.

As is Caitlin Ehlinger, who plays our small town girl, Peggy Sawyer. She does some steps that are dizzying they are so fast and precise.

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The play is based on the 1933 movie of the same name, and songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin peppered the film.

When the musical opened on Broadway in 1980 (it won a Tony that year, and one for its revival in 2001), tunes from the Warren and Dubin catalogue were added. It’s hard not to feel all warm, fuzzy and nostalgic when songs such as “You’re Gettin’ to be a Habit with Me” and “I Only Have Eyes for You” are sung by voices that measured up. And the voices did.

This show was directed by Mark Bramble, who also co-authored the script, and Randy Skinner did the choreography. Both are veterans of that 2001 revival, and that experience translates well into this road show.

The costume designer, Roger Kirk, created colorful period costumes that moved as beautifully as the dancers.

Now, we aren’t saying there weren’t a few bubbles — some of the acting felt hollow, and there were a few slight missteps in the big dance numbers.

But perfection is so boring, isn’t it?

What “42nd Street” gives us is a fast-paced, giddy evening of song and dance delivered by young actors eager to embrace the music and dance that their grandparents — OK, maybe great grandparents — embraced.

And they do that very well.