SOMEWHERE, now in its world premiere on the Old Globe’s White Theatre stage, is a play with a choreographer but no musical director. And its five actors offer some of the best theatre dancing in town right now.

Small wonder, since the cast is headed by none other than Priscilla Lopez, one of the treasures from the original A CHORUS LINE, in which she sang “What I Did For Love” and “Nothing.” Yes, THAT Priscilla Lopez, a few decades more down the road but not carrying an extra pound or inch as far as I could tell.

More importantly, Miss Lopez still has that irresistible glow, that same mixture of mystery and emotion that so lit up ACL. And it’s generously applied to this new play by her nephew, Matthew Lopez, who has struck amber with a time capsule from 1959, when WEST SIDE STORY was still fresh on Broadway at the same time portions of the actual West Side were being demolished to make room for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The irony was remarked upon at the time, but a favorite civic motto, stenciled on barricades all over the metropolis, was “Dig We Must For a Greater New York.” Portions of the WEST SIDE STORY film were shot in the old neighborhood as the wrecking crews stood by just out of camera range, And the people who lived there? Mostly shipped out to the projects in outer burrows like Brooklyn’s Brownsville. How did that work out? The high rise tenements became so notorious that they themselves are being demolished now. Meanwhile, any brownstone that escaped the march of progress in Manhattan is now worth millions.

Anyway, that’s the world of SOMEWHERE. Miss Lopez’s character is a matriarch holding her family together in the path of progress and determined not to move. Well, that’s doomed, of course, so the first act is a contrast to the family’s hopeless show-biz fantasy world (and the reality of the wrecking balls.

Mom ushers, sews costumes and cheerleads. The younger son spend so much on acting classes that he has to bum cigarettes on the street. And the lovely daughter dreams her ballet dreams in wide-eyed wonder. On the side of reality is the oldest son, who quit a promising dance career to take a job in a grocery store so that the family will have some kind of income.

When the man of the family headed out west to find work in Hollywood, he left instructions to stay put until he could send for the others. Letters still show up but the months are turning into years, And the wreckers are in the next block. Will dreams be enough to pull everybody through. Mom promises as much but the family’s best bet – the son with real demonstrated talent – seems bogged down in a funk getting ever browner.

Plays often get built around this conflict between fantasy and reality even though there can never be a clear winner. “Hard work and good luck” is the formula, stated here by the neighborhood Irish kid who stayed with WSS and has been promoted to Jerome Robbins’ dance assistant. Everybody here works hard and the luck is out there. But something’s weighing down an otherwise loveable, buoyant story.

The program notes speak of Lopez family legends from the time when Priscilla Lopez’s generation was re-located. She made it big and the nephew is looking at a career gathering momentum but it’s hard to extrapolate much universal meaning from al this talk of dreams versus reality. And it’s a bad sign almost anytime when one of the main characters is a sensitive young writer.

There’s far too much talk in all this. Points are made over and over. Fortunately, the author has put aside big sections of the play for some real dancing, accompanied by lots of salsa plus music by Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton and, of course, Leonard Bernstein, among others.

Jon Rua is almost as intensely charismatic a dance presence as Miss Lopez (high praise!) and he shapes the anguished drives of the older son through virtuoso solos and duets nearly without flaw. Juan Javier Cardenas is a loveable doofus as the younger brother and that describes his dancing, too. Benita Robledo is often exquisite as the virginal kid sister, growing as we watch. Leo Ash Evans is a superbly insouciant dancer, ideal as a Robbins disciple and invigorating as a soft-shoe partner to Rua.

And time stops when Miss Lopez dancers, even slightly. Her solo in nightgown, dreaming of her absent mate, is probably the slightest of choreographer Greg Graham’s excellent work but hey, look who’s dancing it!

There are some anachronisms in the script – what’s the draft status of all the unemployed young men in 1959? – but very few in the dreary interiors by Campbell Baird and none I saw in the bold period costuming – the undershirts, the girly pedal-pushers, the boy’s sneakers, even the dance bag – by Charlotte Devaux.

Director Giovanna Sardelli has collaborated with everybody involved to make this a charming bubble from a bygone world where dreams and reality are more gently entwined than they seem today. The author could borrow some technique tips from his director and have his say in a tighter, trimmer and less wordy fashion.

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