Runs through: Dec. 6

Unrequited love was a predominant theme of pop music in the early 1960s, girl groups like the Shirrells, Crystals or Marvelettes and lonely males like Gene Pitney or Ray Peterson lamenting adolescent yearnings thwarted by authorities indifferent to their urgency. Not until 1963 would the Beatles' defiant assertion of "A love like that/you know it can't be bad" rally post-WWII children to throw off their parents' repressive upbringing. So when our humble teenage heroine cheerfully announces, upon awakening in her family's Baltimore home, that on this day in 1962, she will determine her own destiny, her declaration reflects not only the hormonal stirrings of approaching maturity, but an era ushering in widespread social changes in the world surrounding her.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's songs for this musical adaptation of the John Waters film employ a structural idiosyncrasy almost unique to the genre, in that just when we anticipate the end of a melody line, the phrase instead continues for several more bars, making for a spilling-over-with-sheer-glee ambience transporting audiences back to a stage of growth when hitherto-unimagined emotions gushed forth oblivious to obstacles. With music like this to spur her on, why should we be surprised when zaftig little Tracy Turnblad not only wins the television dance contest and the handsome prince, but strikes a blow for racial integration and personal fulfillment liberating all generations?

In-the-round staging inevitably makes for unequal sightlines ( the northeast corner gets the best view this time ) , but under Marc Robin's direction and choreography, the mostly ensemble hoofing revels in the kinetic ebullience characteristic of his period's increasingly youth-oriented vox pop ( while still contriving to work in a tap number ) . Marissa Perry's Tracy leads her high-school crusaders with the stamina of a percheron and the voice of a Belting Betty Boop, flanked by Heidi Kettenring and Billy Harrigan Tighe as sidekicks respectively mousy and hunky. Representing the grownups are Hollis Resnik as a Cruella DeVille-tinged Velma and E. Faye Butler, singing up a thunderstorm as Motormouth Maybelle, along with Ross Lehman, whose drag turn as mama Edna blossoms only after Gene Weygandt's daddy Wilber puts him in touch with his feminine side. The show's real stars, however, are the costumes and coiffeurs designed by Michael Bottari, Ronald Case and Gerard Kelly, whose invocation of the title product generates a perfumed glow to warm us through a chilly autumn.