Theater Review:

How time flies. Seems like only yesterday that Adriana Sanchez was playing little Louise in the Costa Mesa Playhouse’s production of “Gypsy.”

Now she’s all grown up and attacking the primo role of Mama Rose with a vengeance in an excellent revival of the biographical musical at the Huntington Beach Playhouse.

OK, she was too old then and probably a little too young now, but when you have a talent like hers, you toss the calendar aside and just relish the experience. Sanchez makes a dynamic Rose and brought a nearly standing-room-only-opening-night audience to its feet with her powerful singing voice and razor-sharp acting ability.

Sanchez is the cherry on top of a delicious cake served up by Larry Watts, who functions as director, choreographer and costume designer, and musical director Mike Walker, who skillfully meshes the singers with a recorded score.

The show, created by Arthur Laurents, composer Jule Styne and a rookie lyricist named Stephen Sondheim back in 1959, recounts how famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee got her start, schlepping around after a venomous stage mother and an ostensibly more talented kid sister, who became the actress June Havoc.

There’s plenty of havoc in this story, set in the waning days of vaudeville as Madame Rose fights tooth and nail to get her kids into the spotlight, and nailing one of the finest Broadway solos of all time — “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” — in the process. Ethel Merman stopped the show with that one 50 years ago, and Sanchez does the same with her full-throated version.

Rose’s lover-manager Herbie, vulnerable enough to pay the kids out of his own pocket, but who draws the line at burlesque as a career, is firmly enacted by Christopher Peduzzi. Nickie Gentry is adorable as the wallflower Louise, though she should heed Mama’s advice (“Sing out, Louise”) with her spoken dialogue.

One highlight not involving Rose arrives when Louise and sister June (a sweet-voiced Kara Stribling) imagine what might happen “If Momma Was Married.”

Another comes late in the first act when dancing farm boy Tulsa (Ryan Marks) whisks his way through a terrific dance solo, “All I Need is the Girl.”

Andrew Otero’s multiple settings are slid on and off stage smoothly, though the tempo lags a bit in the transitional phases. Ensemble work is fine, but the youngsters still need a bit more zip in their steps.

“Gypsy” may be an antique as Broadway musicals go, but its terrific score still radiates when warbled by a talented cast such as this one. It’s frantic, funny and fierce, with the incomparable Sanchez leading the way.

If You Go

What: “Gypsy”

Who: Huntington Beach Playhouse

Where: Library Theater, 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 7

Cost: $18 to $20

Call: (714) 375-0696

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.