Jillian Louis, Mia Pinero, Robert Cuccioli, Pablo Torres, Darius Harper, Jayae Riley, Jr., and Michael Yeshion Photo by Carol Rosegg

The authors are librettists Catherine Filloux and John Daggett, adapting her play All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, and composer-lyricist Jimmy Roberts, with Daggett also dabbling in the lyrics. They confine the action mostly to the lobby of the Big Dipper Inn, a moldering hotel near Niagara Falls that's losing the battle to the Hyatts and Hiltons increasingly dotting the landscape. That's why owner Joan (Debra Walton) has a sale lined up, assisted by Bonnie (Jennifer Byrne), a hard-driving real estate manager. The sale is the principal plot engine, but there are many more plots. Too many.

For starters: Joan is selling the Big Dipper mainly to finance the USC education of her son Dez (Christian Magby), a bright lad with entrepreneurial ambitions, and abandoning her side career as a chanteuse in the Lil Dipper, the onsite cabaret, where she's a wow. (We keep hearing what a wonderful singer she is; in fact, Walton's vocals are on the raspy side, with uncertain high notes.) It's closing time at the Big Dipper, but it's forced to stay open to accommodate two stranded sets of guests as an upstate blizzard blows in. It seems a van of Amish folk collided with a bus containing "The Sirens of Syracuse," a Les Ballets Trockadero-type drag dance troupe. In both groups walk, through Brian Pacelli's set consisting mainly of doors and a formidable front desk (he also did some impressive projections), bringing culture clash and interpersonal conflicts.

I don't even have space to list all the conflicts. Some of the chief ones: Jacky/Jake (Michael Yeshion), a Siren of Syracuse, is a happily married man and a leading lawyer at a white-shoe firm, who has somehow managed to hide this aspect of his personality from both his wife and the firm. What, she never found his wardrobe, and they never asked why he was taking so much time off? The Sirens' choreographer, Carly (Jayae Riley, Jr.), is trans (says the script; it's briefly mentioned in a lyric, but I never got that) and inexplicably besotted with Jake. Bonnie, racing to close the sale and crack the glass ceiling, yells on the phone a lot and has a fun solo, "Go With What Ya Got." Mr. Sapper (usually DeMone Seraphin; Darius Harper last night, and he was excellent), the hotel handyman, is delving into the Big Dipper's history. Amos (Robert Cuccioli with a paste-on beard), a gruff, judgmental Amish widower farmer, is missing his wife and too guardedly raising his daughter Rebecca (Mia Pinero), who yearns for a freer, less Amish existence and is obsessed with Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive a plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Amos wants her to marry Eli (Pablo Torres), a proper and uncompelling young Amish fellow, but looking at Dez gives her heart pangs. Kate (Jillian Louis) is the irritating local TV reporter covering the blizzard. Sarah (Louis again) is a neighbor of Amos' who wants to marry him, for reasons difficult to fathom. There are other characters, with the cast of ten playing up to four roles apiece, and other stories, but these will suffice to convey how crowded the storytelling is.

Crowded, and surfacy: There just isn't time to invest this large assemblage with enough character quirks to turn them into complete human beings, and Filloux and Daggett's dialogue seldom traverses beyond the expository. For a story that would appear to offer many opportunities for culture-clash humor, the comedy is practically nil; most of it involves Abigail (Byrne), an elderly Amish lady who mis-hears everything, a joke that extends at least 100 years back into vaudeville, and probably wasn't that funny then. Some plot strands are left hanging–do Dez and Rebecca become a couple or not?–and the deus ex machina resolution of the main one, however based-on-a-true-event it may be, feels like a contrivance.

When that resolution is revealed, and the cast hits what sounds like the final note and raises its arms in this-is-over fashion, it's not over. Joan sticks around to sing, can you beat this, another waltz, punctuated by here's-what-happened-to-me speeches from most of the principals, a la the Ragtime finale. They're all happy endings, which sends us out smiling, but is less than credible.

That's the bad stuff. On the plus side, Roberts' score is always pleasant and often better than that, with Beth Falcone's four-piece ensemble sounding larger, thanks to Doug Katsaros' plush orchestrations. Roberts' lyrics, at least, are neat; most are character self-examination, not pushing the plot much, but they're clear, and they do rhyme. (One misstep: pairing "sanctuary," which is repeated 16 times–the Big Dipper is a sanctuary, you see–with "rest for the wary," when obviously he means "weary.") Most of the voices are quite strong, with Byrne and Cuccioli leading the pack, and we get why Pinero's sweet Rebecca would fall for Magby's rather irresistible Dez. Torres and Louis, each having to inhabit four characters, change personalities and costumes quickly and persuasively.

Ashley Marinelli's choreography is a bit timid, though she does contrive a quick dream ballet while Jake is on the hotel pay phone (no cellphone signals in these parts). DeMone Seraphin's direction is ... I just wanted more of it, some augmentation to the mild personages executing the gentle goings-on.

I don't mean to be too rough on this one. Its goals are unimpeachable, the authors do master the rudiments of musical storytelling, and Roberts' score makes one want to hear more from him. It's an uncynical show, one that celebrates diversity and has generally nice people doing generally nice things for one another. Maybe if they chucked a couple of subplots and delved deeper into their characters' wants and needs. As it is, Welcome to the Big Dipper resembles the snow globe on its program cover: festive and attractive, but it needs some shaking up.