Cathy Rigby may have made her name in gymnastics but she has become a tried and true musical comedy star. After years touring in Annie Get Your Gun and Peter Pan, including two runs of Peter Pan in four of Broadway’s biggest theaters, Rigby stepped in to the role of The Cat in the Hat to try and revive its flagging ticket sales on Broadway last year. It wasn’t enough to keep the show running, notwithstanding delighted audience reactions. But when the creators of the show decided to mount a national tour with a new director, a new look and a new cast, they were smart enough to retain this pixie of a Cat. The authors helped by altering the book just enough to make the part an even better match for Rigby’s talents. Most notably, Paul Rubin of SFX Flying Illusions was brought in to give flight to Rigby and others who now cavort upward as well as side to side.

Rigby’s is the only name most will recognize in the cast but there are some thoroughly satisfying performances in other major roles. At the opening night performance, the boy Jo-Jo was played by Richard Miron who made the role the heart of the piece. This is different than it was on Broadway where the role of Horton the Elephant filled that bill. Here Eric Leviton fails to tug quite as hard on the heart strings as the pachyderm who's faithful one hundred percent even though he has almost all the same lines and songs. Gaelen Gilliland is a delight as Gertrude McFuzz and Stuart Marland makes even more of the role of military school headmaster General Genghis Kahn Schmitz than did his Broadway predecessor.

The show is almost entirely sung, with an occasional spoken couplet in Seussian rhyme or a vaudevillish bit for Rigby. As such, the entire multi-story plot is communicated through the songs of the best of the new crop of Broadway composer/lyricist teams, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Ahrens’ lyrics are so "Seussian" that it would be impossible for anyone to determine which lines are lifted from the good doctor’s books and which were written by her specifically for the show. Flaherty’s music is unfailingly melodic with a wide variety of beats and feelings. The score was without a doubt the best thing about the Broadway version and it has been retained with only minor modification and with the wonderfully effective orchestrations of Doug Besterman. However, the tour does suffer from too tight a budget – or, at least, too little of the investment showing on stage. There are some fabulous costume creations for specific scenes but the other costumes are frumpy wrinkled things. The new sets by James Kronzer are insufficiently elaborate, with only the Jungle of Nool set seeming Seussian. The entire thing is rather spottily lit and there is a reliance on sliding curtains which get caught on set pieces, show wrinkles and billow from the breeze created by stage hands changing scenery behind them. The show is at its best and brightest when you close your eyes and listen.

This opening night’s crisis won’t go down in the history books as anything like the drama surrounding the show’s original opening on Broadway. That was the night that the director/choreographer Gower Champion died but the news was kept from audience and cast alike until producer David Merrick could make the dramatic announcement during the curtain calls. But the mini-crisis of the Baltimore opening night added significant drama to the evening. The audience arrived to find the theater being picketed by members of the union representing the box office employees of the theater. The union was protesting the lack of a contract for those employees and certain provisions in the proposed new contract. Not all the unions involved in the performance, however, were joining the cause. The members of Actors Equity and some locals of the crew working backstage and the front of the house were still going to put on a show. Not all the equipment had been unloaded and the big set pieces were still on the truck. But enough costumes were available and the smaller set pieces like chairs and desks and such were ready.

Patrick Ryan Sullivan, whose strong presence as the producer in the play is superb, strode on stage to let the audience know that this would be a "reduced" presentation but that the cast and crew were determined to give them "a 42^nd Street like no other." Refunds or exchanges were available for those wanting to leave but the show would go on for the rest. Few in the audience left their seats. When the big, bold brassy sound of the 15 piece pit band filled the hall and the curtain rose to knee height revealing six dozen tapping feet in Gower Champion’s legendary first effect, the audience roared approval. They then sat back to enjoy and there was lots to enjoy throughout the evening.

Without the individual body mikes, the actors had to increase the volume and project their lines at least to the floor mounted area mikes that normally pick up the tap routines. Had they had a chance to rehearse it that way, they probably could have come up with just the right level of projection. Without a chance to fine tune their projection, at least through much of the first act they seemed to be shouting a lot. Still, Catherine Wreford got the innocence of the girl from Allentown across, Robert Spring delivered a charming "juvenile lead," Blair Ross sold her role as the mean-spirited star and Sullivan was a commanding producer. But the real credit goes to the troupe as a whole and whoever assumed the leadership role to devise the changes in staging, blocking and choreography that the lack of the sets required. Nearly every scene went off without a hitch. Only the scene in the railroad car seemed a bit difficult to follow since it was supposed to take place with the chorus members in individual berths. Even this scene was sold by the troopers who simply wouldn’t let the audience down.

The script creates four real people with dreams, fears, histories and opinions whose dealings with each other are the natural results of their personalities and circumstances. This is no easy task as any playwright will attest and Auburn gets it right in his very first major play. He also comes up with one of the great first-act curtain lines of recent memory. With a mathematical "proof" at the center of the story, Auburn turns his title into a double entandré. There is little actual discussion of higher mathematics, so the audience need know no more that what a prime number might be in order to follow the discussions. There is never a sense that the author is "talking down" to the audience or artificially keeping the discussion non-technical. However, he does take the discussion of what the proof proves off stage in a fairly clumsy "lets go for a walk and you can tell me what this means" moment.

Robert Foxworth has top billing but only because he is the best known personality in the cast (he starred in TV’s "Falcon’s Crest"). As the father he has less stage time than the other three performers, but he is impressive in the progression of his character’s realization of his incapacity. His silent reaction to his daughter’s reading of a portion of the draft of a proof is a memorable piece of subtlety that makes its point poignantly without upstaging the work of Chelsea Altman as the daughter. Altman is the primary lead in this production because it is really her story that is being told. Her performance is touching and director Sullivan uses her to pace the entire show. The other two performers are more than just a "supporting cast" – each with a prominent role and each with a satisfying performance. Tasha Lawrence is the sister who would take over decision making for her younger sibling, and Stephen Kunken is the former student who is attracted to both Altman’s character and the possible "proof."

Beatty’s set is a rock-solid replication of an aging Chicago suburban home which becomes something of a character in the telling of the story. The lights in the upstairs windows indicate events while Pat Collins’ lights and shadows tell time and John Gromada’s atmospheric sounds tell the season as surely as Jess Goldsein’s costumes do. All in all, it is an elegant package.

The audience gets its first treat of the evening when the orchestra of twenty performs a full overture of the rich melodies of Richard Rodgers in the sonorities of his original orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett – no jazzed up, thinned down, synthesized version. Then the curtain rises on a Derek McLane’s frankly gorgeous set of the patio of the planter’s mansion on a hill overlooking the ocean and neighboring islands, and the audience knows it isn’t getting scaled down sets. Enter Michael Nouri and Erin Dilly as the planter and his nurse, and it is quickly apparent that the talent is first rate as well. As the evening progresses, it is a delight to discover that any temptation to "up-date" supposedly dated material has been resisted.

No, this is a revival like revivials should be done. It transports you back to the golden age of the Broadway Musical and shows you exactly why the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein were so revered. They were able to push the boundaries of that art form while touching something deeply held in the public psyche. "Bali Ha’i," "Younger Than Springtime," "I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," "Some Enchanted Evening," "A Wonderful Guy," "There’s Nothing Like a Dame," "A Cockeyed Optimist," "Happy Talk," and "You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught" are each wonderful songs in their own right but here they each add something unique to the full story. They all belong in the same show and the show would be something less without any one of them.

Michael Nouri not only sings with a rich and resonant bass that fits the material written for opera star Ezio Pinza, he gives a touching performance of a mature lover tormented by the inability of his lover to accept his proposal. Erin Dilly is every inch the knucklehead who comes to accept that love only when she believes it is too late. Lewis Cleale’s performance as the young Lieutenant sneaks up on you, seeming lightweight in the beginning but tearing at the heart with both his big love song and his embittered outburst of "You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught." For those who think of Rodgers and Hammerstein as treacly sweet, just imagine who else in the musical theater could have delivered such a lecture on tolerance to the world in 1949 and have it so thoroughly accepted. How wonderful to have it and all the rest of the riches of this national treasure on display as they deserve.

Kathleen Turner is "Mrs. Robinson," a part that became an icon when the 1967 movie opened and the Simon and Garfunkle theme song hit big. Turner’s stage presence is strong and her comic timing good as she creates her own version of the role rather than ape the movies’ view. She brings to mind not Anne Bancroft but, rather, Bette Davis.

The Graduate is a very funny and also very touching Jason Biggs, previously best known for work in soap operas ("As the World Turns") and sophomoric sex comedy films ("American Pie.") That he has solid stage credentials may surprise some. With this play he is on his way back to Broadway ten years after his debut there in Conversations With My Father at age 13. Here he is almost continuously on stage and he pulls it off very well. Another actress known mostly for film work, Alicia Silverstone ("Clueless") has the younger "Miss Robinson" part. She doesn’t get to make her entrance until an hour into the show but she has three scenes in which she manages to go beyond some of the sitcom level schtick written for her to create a satisfying character.

The process of converting any well known film for the stage is always complicated by the fact that movies can move from location to location instantly, including interiors, exteriors and montages while the stage is much more static. Designer Rob Howell turns this into a virtue by adopting a beautifully elegant but extremely simple set composed of walls of doors. Keeping everything as uncluttered as possible, a bedroom may have only a bed and a hotel lobby only a desk. It focuses the eye and, especially as dramatically lit by Hugh Vanstone, sets the tone. There is very little that is superfluous in the design, the script or the performances. The result is a fine and touching production.

Storyline: A con man who could give the trade of traveling salesman a bad name comes to an Iowa town at the Fourth of July in 1912. He runs a scam to form a boys band in order to sell band instruments and uniforms even though he can’t teach them how to play music. He romances the local librarian/piano teacher. Both the librarian and the town fall under his spell.

Susan Stroman (Contact, The Producers) directed this joyful revival on Broadway, filling the stage of the Neil Simon Theater with splashes of bright colors, energetic dances, a smooth flow of action and a sense of spirit. Ray Broderick recreates her direction for this touring version but he has less color in the world he creates, fewer cast members in the ensemble which robs some of the dance scenes of their scale, less substantial sets with which to create the mythical world of middle-America and a much less evenly skilled cast than is customary either on a Broadway stage or in a national tour of a Broadway blockbuster.

Newcomer Gerritt Vandermeer is the find of the show, taking on the title role originated by Robert Preston and giving it a fresh, appealing turn. The role was recreated by Craig Bierko on Broadway in a performance that seemed almost channeling Preston. Not so young Vandermeer. His Professor Harold Hill is a young whippersnapper, glib not from years of practice ripping off innocents but from an excess of self-confidence. He charms his way through the evening. Carolann M. Sanita is another newcomer who sings the lovely love songs ("Goodnight, My Someone," "My White Knight," "Will I Ever Tell You," "Till There Was You") in a theater-filling voice. She also handles the exacting dance requirements of Stroman’s "Marian, the Librarian" segment flawlessly and this is no mean feat as it requires her to move all over the stage setting without seeming to be dancing but hitting every mark in precise timing to motivate all the dancers’ movements. The balance of the cast is a mixed bag ranging from very good to just all right to not quite good enough. The barbershop quartet of the School Board Members and the ladies who "pick a little" are very good, the Mayor and his wife fall in the just all right category while Connor Kilian Weigand as the dancing Tommy Djilas can’t spark "76 Trombones" as the choreography demands.