“Valiant behavior is no replacement for musical talent or the know-how acquired in years of stage experience. Applegate possesses neither. She has limited musical theater instincts — she wanders off-key rather often — and though she makes admirable attempts to move like a real dancer, you’re aware in every pivot that she isn’t one. (The character, after all, is supposed to dance for her supper.) These deficiencies are as fatal to the production as root rot is to a garden.”