AMERICAN MUSICAL

When Agnes de Mille began work on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro in 1947, she was the most famous choreographer in the world and the first woman ever tasked with directing a Broadway musical. Alas, the show was too message-heavy and the groundbreaking staging, which included a Greek chorus telling a coming-of-age story, too complicated; it became the artists’ first flop, though it ran for nine months and toured for years. Now Scottish director-designer John Doyle reconceives Allegro for a new millennium, on CSC’s thrust stage with a cast of 12 and without the dancing. The score is delicious, the subject perpetually timely, and, at 90 minutes, with Claybourne Elder and Jane Pfitsch in the leading roles, the piece invites you in. It opens in previews tonight.

Saturdays, Sundays, 3 p.m.; Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7 p.m. Starts: Nov. 1. Continues through Dec. 7, 2014