Footlose: An upbeat musical that is sometimes exciting, sometimes “so so”.

Bomont , U.S.A., the fictional setting for Footloose, is no place to live if you’re a teenager. The small town has banned dancing and rock music, which bothers new arrival Ren McCormack (Mathieu-Philippe Perras, a fine dancer with a good if undisciplined voice) so much that he corrals his fellow teens into challenging the municipal edict.

This is an upbeat musical, so it’s hardly a spoiler to say that Ren and company are successful. Besides, it’s the getting there that’s the focus of this pretty derivative musical as the teens conspire, cuddle, have showdowns with teachers and parents, fight, dance at an out-of-town country music joint, and generally carry on exactly as teenagers are supposed to do.

However, Orpheus’ production under Shaun Toohey (artistic director), Wendy Berkelaar (musical director) and Gabe Wolinsky (choreographer) is uneven.

Sometimes the cast, including Courtney Vezina as Ariel Moore, Ren’s love interest, and her father the Reverend Shaw Moore (Ken Tucker), who was behind the edict against dancing and rock and roll, pull together and the show surges. And there is a triumphal feel shared by audience and characters alike when Willard Hewitt, a bright-eyed, dim-witted bumpkin played with skill by Phillip Merriman, learns, as does the town, that dancing is good for the soul.

Other times, the production is a mismatched collection of so-so dancing (Wolinsky should have cracked the whip harder), acceptable vocals, and almost consistently clunky scene changes.

The show is also hamstrung by Centrepointe’s second-rate sound system which frequently renders performers’ voices thin and unable to compete with the orchestra.

All that said, it remains an entertaining show, and you root from the start for the upstart teens.

Footloose: music by Tom Snow with additional music by others, lyrics by Dean Pitchford, book by Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie.

The show continues at Centrepointe Theatre until Dec. 2.

Footlose, a production of the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society