Love may be an elusive lil' sucker, but that certainly doesn't mean a girl can't dream.

And if that girl is Charity Hope Valentine, she does a whole lot of dreaming.

"All Charity wants to do is be loved. As much as she gets beaten up by it, she always picks herself up again, because she realizes you never know who or what you're going to find the next time," said Melissa Carlile (junior-musical theatre), who will star as the bubbly, blond ingenue in the School of Theatre's production of Sweet Charity.

Sweet Charity tells the tale of a glass-half-full kind of gal who fantasizes about meeting a nice man to save her from her seedy life as a nightclub dancer. Though full of hope and dreams and giggles galore, Charity can't seem to find her Prince Charming. But when wholesome accountant Oscar comes into her life, Charity thinks she might have found the chap to brag about back at the club.

"Oscar is the kind of character who is stuck on the conveyer belt of life," said Jason Fahey (junior-musical theatre), who plays the neurotic love interest.

So do they or don't they end up together? Fahey teasingly declined to divulge that tidbit, but promised the ending attests to Charity's infinite, amorous optimism.

The buoyant, Neil Simon-penned musical takes place in the 1960s, but director Spence Ford warned that Sweet Charity is more Austin Powers than Woodstock.

"I said to the scene designer, 'Think Laugh-In,'" Ford said.

The sets are cartoonish; the costumes are flirty; the music is swinging. While the tunes in Sweet Charity are important (especially that ubiquitous number "Hey Big Spender") the dancing's where the action's at, Ford said.

Sweet Charity was originally directed and choreographed by none other than the jazz-hands-lovin' Bob Fosse, the same man responsible for the sultry, recognizable hits Chicago and Cabaret.

Sweet Charity, which premiered in 1966, is actually experiencing a revival -- the show, starring Christina Applegate, is currently in Chicago and will be movin' on up to Broadway this spring.

Ford, a Penn State dance instructor, had the distinction of working with Fosse before his death: She was in the Broadway production of Dancin', as well as its subsequent U.S. tour and London run.