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The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them. Musicals are especially good at this because they provide not only an opportunity for us to enact dramatic versions of alternative identities, but also the material for performing such alternatives in the real world, through songs and the characters and attitudes those songs project.

Amen! is the way people in church might have responded, but theatergoers are a more refined crowd, and we merely murmured our approval. Dr. Tony Hernandez, a pediatric cardiologist, successfully performed the delicate operation to repair the heart.

If you wanted to prove that's what the real St. Louis is like, you could hardly do better than to point to the Muny, the outdoor theater in Forest Park that is itself a St. Louis family tradition.

This was all pretty charming in the 1944 MGM film on which the show is based, and not just because Judy Garland was around as [Esther] to sing the big numbers like ''Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'' (whence the aforementioned beloved lyrics), ''The Boy Next Door'' and ''The Trolley Song.'' Of course the cast has to deal with the third-rate numbers (like ''A Touch of the Irish'' and ''The Banjo'') the movie's original composer-lyricists, Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, wrote for the stage version, which opened on Broadway in 1989. ALL ABOARD: At the Paper Mill's ''Meet Me in St. Louis,'' Brynn O'[Malley], as Esther, aboard that relentless trolley and, left, with next-door heartthrob [John Truitt] ([Brian Hissong]). (PHOTOGRAPHS BY GERRY GOODSTEIN)

\"Meet Me in St. Louis,\" which seems to show up at least once a year, isn't a stage masterpiece. Created for the screen in 1944, it was retrofitted for live performance in 1989. It's a visually choppy piece and lacks both an innate theatricality and a decent 11 o'clock number -- the dull \"You Are for Loving\" drives me crazy every time I hear it. But this is a sweet family story with several hummable tunes, including \"The Boy Next Door,\" \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" and, of course, \"The Trolley Song.\"

The voices in the cast are pretty decent -- especially the pipes of a handsome young fellow called Eric Labanauskas, a name to watch - - but the musical direction is often shoddy. The lead performer, a talented young woman named Baylea Morgan, has all of the wide-eyed innocence needed for Esther -- the role associated with Judy Garland -- but charm and potential doesn't get you through the night if you're inclined to wander off-key. Morgan could avoid that if she was only paying more careful attention. And so it goes elsewhere -- the ensemble singing is great but several of the big solo numbers wobble precariously. And those fragile acting scenes about courtship and parenting in an age long gone? They crash like the darn trolley came off its tracks and went straight through the front window.

Director Michael Hamilton knows that the [Lon Smith] sisters are the life of the show, and he's cast them well. The teenagers, Esther (Julie Hanson) and Rose (Melinda Cowan), are flirtatious and full of life. The little girls (Molly Ryan alternating with Abigail Isom, Alexis L. Kinney alternating with Berklea Going) are adorable mischief-makers. Charming young men show up at regular intervals. Everybody sings. The best numbers were in the first musical \"Meet Me in St. Louis,\" the 1944 Judy Garland movie that introduced \"The Trolley Song,\" \"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas\" and, of course, the title number. But movie musicals almost always have fewer songs than a stage musical needs. PHOTO; PHOTO - Julie Hanson (from left), Alexis Kinney and Molly Ryan are featured in Stages St. Louis' production of 'Meet Me in St. Louis.'

In fact, [Paul Blake] knits the Smiths into an easygoing family with a warm, natural feel: Ashley Brown as marriageable Rose, John Friemann as crusty Grandpa, Ellen Ransom and Berklea Going as the impish little sisters and Georgia Engel as the devoted Irish maid. Daniel Reichard, who plays the brother, serves choreographer Liza Gennaro well in a sprightly number, \"The Banjo.\" Muny veterans Leslie Denniston, who played Anna in \"The King and I,\" and Walter Charles, who played the Frenchman in \"South Pacific,\" team up as the parents of a happy, middle-class St. Louis family looking forward to the fair. Their duet, \"Wasn't It Fun?,\" leaves memories of \"Hello, Young Lovers\" and \"Some Enchanted Evening\" untouched. But their aplomb was delicious as their ode to love that lasts \"through rain and sun, through sun and rain\" was underscored with real showers.

When it comes to putting on big Broadway musicals in smaller theaters, ambition and a respect for classic material are useful qualities. And with its traveling house, hydraulic stage, falling snow and slides of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Michael Weber's expansive Indiana revival of \"Meet Me in St. Louis\" is a grand and admirable effort at giving Theatre at the Center audiences plenty of old-fashioned show for their holiday money.