The Marvelous Wonderettes couldn't have found a better home than Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre on Coral Gables' Miracle Mile.

With more time-warp wedding shops per square mile than any city street this side of a 1950s film set, Miracle Mile almost serves as a character itself for a musical whose roster of pop hits ranges from Mr. Sandman (now rescued from the Halloween horror film franchise) to a swooning Thank You and Goodnight two effervescent hours later.

It's all in service of a tale as sweet as a strawberry milkshake with whipped cream swirls. Come to think of it, that about describes the visual look of the gaily bright set designed by Sean McClelland.

Actors' Playhouse director David Arisco knows his audience and courts it well with this rendition of writer Roger Bean's Off Broadway New York hit, which serves as the opening entry for the theater's 2009-10 season. Actors' Playhouse earns boasting rights as the first independent regional production of the musical.

The just thisclose to marvelous Marvelous Wonderettes takes its audience back to 1958 and the gymnasium of Springfield High School. The senior prom could unravel like a crinoline skirt at any moment because the prom's promised headliners, The Crooning Crabcakes, canceled at the last minute. Cooties!

But the Wonderettes, the Crabcakes' female counterparts, take this as an opportunity to showcase the gumption that anything the boys can do, they can do better.

We never do meet any of the boys, Crabcake or otherwise, but we hear plenty about them in Bean's genial script through the voices of the Wonderettes, who are played with considerable charm by Carbonell-nominated Actors' Playhouse vets Amy Miller Brennan (Cindy Lou Huffington), Tiana Checchia (Suzy Simpson), Julie Kleiner (Betty Jean Reynolds) and Lisa Manuli (Missy Miller).

These talented women work overtime to push Wonderettes toward wonderful because, truth be told, the plot is as fizzy as a root beer float and the first act starts out as little more than a '50s revue of rather corny pop tunes.

If you grew up in the era where songs like Lollipop rang the bell atop Billboard's Hot 100 and recognize that every single-syllable word in a pop song back then stretched to two (as in: ``you-uu,'' ``tru-uue'') and you di-ig that style, please forgive me.

The stale revue flavor dissipates partly through audience participation. If you're a guy in the front row, you may be plucked onto the stage to fill the role of Mr. Lee, the love object of lovelorn Missy. The audience also gets to vote for the prom queen in an amusingly rigged contest. Brennan's voice and facial expressions are priceless.

As the actresses inhabit their characters' personality quirks, the song choices in this jukebox musical suddenly seem ingenious. Seldom has You Don't Own Me felt quite so momentous. These oldies wouldn't be anything more than mem'ries of scratchy old 45s were it not for the skill of the four leads who elevate this bauble skyward.

Wonderettes' second act particularly resonates because the foursome, now at their high school reunion in 1968, have let life in and not everything has gone to plan.

For instance, Cindy isn't the Hollywood superstar she'd once envisioned for herself; Suzy is pregnant and not thrilled since men aren't the knight in shining armor pop songs promised to women in those days.

Each member of the quartet gets a three-song medley showcase. Checchia excels as her prodigious pipes transcend the nasal comic tone of her character. (Her Respect earns a laugh when it becomes clear spelling wasn't Suzy's best subject at Springfield High.)

The Marvelous Wonderettes is quaint but so lovingly crafted -- from the direction to the detailed set design to the performances -- only a bully would leave the theater in a bad mood.

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