Sometimes Broadway gets light and frivolous entertainment right, and when it does, it is important to make sure that the touring version is mounted with care so audiences across the country can have as good a time as do audiences in New York. Here’s an example. No deep human insights. No important social commentary. No big name star power. Just a lot of fun. Bright, colorful, jazzy, funny and attractive fun. Thoroughly Modern Millie is thoroughly satisfying entertainment - nothing less, nothing more.

Storyline: Retaining the basic story of the famous movie, the Broadway musical tells of a young woman who comes to New York at the height of the flapper era determined to follow Vogue’s advice to the modern woman – marry money. In the process, she stumbles into a "white slavery" racket that kidnaps unattached young women who come to New York to break into show business and ships them off to China to become street walkers. Naturally, she breaks up the criminal activity while finding true love.

The touring cast is every bit as good as the original Broadway cast. Darcie Roberts gets more out of the physical comedy of the title role than the Tony-Award winning Sutton Foster did while belting the big numbers and tapping away with aplomb. Her acrobatic comic bit in which she gets tangled up under her typing desk earned a round of applause, not just lots of laughs. Sean Allan Krill doesn’t dance quite as well as Marc Kudisch did in the original as the boss Millie sets her sights on, but he’s fabulous at singing the operetta material from lush romantics to patter songs and gets all the comedy just right. Millie’s true love interest is nicely played by Matt Cavenaugh who just closed as the star of Urban Cowboy on Broadway. Hollis Resnik is very funny as the faux-Chinese villain and Pamela Isaacs soars on her two big blues numbers as a wealthy club singer.

The score very properly and effectively lifts material from the original movie and adds some nice new material. There are ten new songs. Some of the show’s best musical moments come from music composed by James Van Heusen (the title song), Jay Thompson ("Jimmy"), Peter Il’ych Tchaikovsky ("The Nuttycracker Suite"), Sir Arthur Sullivan ("The Speed Test") and Victor Herbert ("I’m Falling in Love with Someone"). There’s even a little Offenbach in the orchestra. The songs that were written by Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan specifically for the musical are nice and one is even a standout – "Forget About the Boy."

The book that Scanlan cobbled together with screenplay writer Richard Morris has its problems, but the book isn’t the real reason for doing this show and, when it really counts, it delivers. A key factor for any musical playing Wolf Trap’s Filene Center is the quality of the sound design and its execution, for there can be as many as 4,000 people under the roof and nearly as many out on the lawn. Here John Weston’s design is nearly flawlessly executed. The tour’s sets aren’t as brightly colored or art deco-ish as the Broadway version. They seem a tad flimsy and fail to fill the cavernous stage of Wolf Trap’s Filene Center, but set designer, David Gallo, has added a nice touch of an Alexander Calder mobile hanging in the penthouse suite of the wealthy club singer. The set for the sky scrapper ledge on which Millie and her beaux cavort is nicely done (only in musical comedy would breaking into a soft shoe on a sky scrapper’s ledge seem not only sensible but inevitable) and the drop-down screen for the translation of ... well, lets not give away all the gags!

Music by Jeanine Tesori and others. Book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan. Lyrics by Dick Scanlan and others. Directed by Michael Mayer. Choreography by Rob Ashford. Orchestrations by Doug Besterman and Ralph Burns. Dance arrangements by David Chase. Music direction by Eric Stern. Design: David Gallo (set) Martin Pakledinaz (costumes) Donald Holder (lights) Jon Weston (sound). Cast: Bradley Benjamin, Renée Monique Brown, Matt Cavenaugh, Jeremy Davis, Juliana Ashley Hansen, Pamela Isaacs, Diana Kaarina, Sean Allan Krill, Rachel Lafer, Joe Langworth, Mark Ledbetter, Darren Lee, Troy Magino Daniel May, Andrew Pang, Heather Parcells, Diane Veronica Phelan, Mia Price, Hollis Resnik, Darcie Roberts, Janelle A. Robinson, Paul Schaefer, Laura Shoop, Steven Wenslawski, Tony Yazbeck.