Diana DiMarzio, Max Wolkowitz, and Marilyn Caserta Photo by Dorice Arden Madronero

The musical is based on Gitter's play of the same name, which also had a run at Penguin before moving to 59E59. The musical tells a delightfully sweet tale of two lonely people living next door to one another in New York–but they might as well be from different planets.

The story begins with Angie Mastrantoni, a Lower East Side art gallery owner, sitting in the new apartment she has just moved into when there's a knock on her door. A voice, speaking Korean, is apparently seeking the apartment's previous occupant (who we learn has been operating as the Shabbos Goy for the Orthodox Jewish neighbor). Angie plays it cool, but it's clear from the start there's a spark between the two.

The plot isn't exactly Chekhovian, but it is extremely heartwarming, as the obviously mis-matched couple surmounts all the obvious obstacles to arrive at true love–but it's the journey that's all the fun.

Mr. Gitter and Mr. Berg have taken a concept that you think you know inside out and make it fresh. Mr. Berg's songs are the key. They elevate what on the surface seems like just another old-fashioned story heard countless times before, into a magical tale that's both traditional and fresh, and his melodies never cease to touch the heart. Special kudos to musical supervisor and arranger, the brilliant Wendy Bobbitt Cavett, and orchestrator Alex Wise for crafting a wonderfully evocative but inobtrusive musical soundscape.

Paying Angie a visit is her Nonna (her grandmother), who we learn put up the money for Angie to start the gallery and whom she is desperate not to disappoint. Nonna, played deliciously by Diana DiMarzio, not-so-gently nudges Angie to get out of her comfort zone and go find a guy, like Nonno (her grandfather), and to "hear the music life is singing to you." Despite Angie's protestations that she is perfectly content being single and focused on her work, it's readily apparent that she's fooling no one. This relationship is adorable and central to the play.

Marilyn Caserta's Angie is an eminently likeable and sympathetic working woman, determined, in spite of all the hurdles, to make her gallery a success. To Caserta's credit, as we learn more and more about Angie, we like her more and more.

Max Wolkowitz's Seth, the Orthodox Jewish down-the-hall neighbor, is an adorable knish shop owner who finds himself helpless every Friday night and has come to rely on his "Sabbath goy" for everything from using the air conditioner to turning on the lights.

Initially, Angie finds Seth more fascinating and sweet than attractive. She has convinced herself that she has no time for relationships–that is until Blake, a hot, rising star painter (hilariously played the scenery-chewing, Rory Max Kaplan) enters her gallery and her life. He's looking for a gallery for a new showcase, but he's also looking for more: he wants to be "wooed," and Angie reluctantly agrees to woo the smoking hot young artist. Blake's intentions are made clear in a hilarious number to Angie: "I Wanna Paint You."

Here the story gets a bit predictable as the girl learns the life lesson that the vapid, hot guy is a lesser value proposition than the nice Jewish boy down the hall.

Seth is a much more layered character. There is far more to him than the helpless schlemiel he appears to be. Seth has a complex personal and emotional history that adds great dimension to the character, and Mr. Wolkowitz' performance is first rate: frustratingly torn between two worlds, but respectful of both. He tenderly and eloquently condenses the conflict and crisis of faith in what may be the show's best number, "The World He Never Knew."

Seth's sister Rachel, played with great zest by Lauren Singerman, is perfect in every way. She is the most cliched character in the play, but her overbearing, over-protective nature is always well-intentioned–and always hilarious. Ms, Singerman has the audience in stitches with just a facial expression. Rachel is Seth's partner in their family's knish shop, but, predictably, she does not share his view of Angie. She immediately develops a deep-seated distrust, dislike and dismissal of the thought of her brother spending time with this "shiksa goddess." Rachel represents all the traditions of the culture and the religion in one character, which she passionately details in the anthemic number: "Something Bigger Than Us." But even she has an epiphany along the way.

Director Joe Brancato does a marvelous job of keeping the potentially cliched story focused on the human elements of the story and bringing forth all the inherent richness. Christopher and Justin Swader have deftly cobbled together multiple locations–two apartments, an art gallery and a knish shop–into one lovely unit set.

Sometimes a familiar story can defy expectations and pre-conceptions, and that is exactly what The Sabbath Girl: A New Musical does. And (as this critic stated in a review of the original play) you don't need to know the difference between a schlemiel and a schlimazel to appreciate it.