Pictured: Syncopated Avenue on the WBTT stage. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

As I weave back to my seat for Act II of Syncopated Avenue and the theater settles into its quiet but expectant hush, like a collective Moses willing the curtains to part and the show to go on, the woman to my right confesses to her neighbor in a confidential whisper loud enough for everyone to hear: “The story is silly… but tap is a dying art and I’m so glad he’s bringing it back.”

Which kind of sums up this review.

Created and written by Nate Jacobs—WBTT founder/artistic director/spokesman/de facto playwright-in-residence/all-around #1 hypeman—and brother Michael Jacobs, Syncopated Avenue brings audiences street-level and eyewitness to the David & Goliath showdown between a neighborhood dance studio (and club?) and the forces of Great Gentrification. It’s a classic—and Sarasota-relevant—story of the plucky family business vs. encroaching developers, all wrapped up in a romcom, with a dash of history, a touch of Faust and characters as broad as a billboard.

We’ve got the obstinate old-head owner who all but calls the rest of the cast “whippersnappers,” the slick-suited businessman with Don’t Trust Me stamped on his forehead, and, somewhere between missing legal contracts and an imminent 25th-anniversary blowout, boy meets girl. (Yes, the owner has a daughter. She’s beautiful, she does everything the boys do but does it in heels, and the male protagonist falls for her at first sight. Eat your heart out, Hallmark.)

Narratively, this is well-trodden ground for Syncopated Avenue to navigate. It does so, however, in some mighty fine tap shoes.

WBTT regulars expecting to see regular WBTT faces may be surprised when the curtain rises on some unfamiliar mugs, but they won’t be disappointed by what comes next. If the story is thin, it’s because the production’s dance card is full-to-bursting, with a whopping 25 song-and-dance (song-and-tap?) numbers crammed into its two acts. And this is where Syncopated Avenue’s true passion becomes apparent—as does the necessity of a cast with a very particular set of skills.

Choreographed by Lamont Brown (who also stars as aforementioned male protagonist) and set to music and lyrics by Louis Danowsky and the Jacobs brothers, respectively, Syncopated Avenue is, more than anything, a full-bodied celebration of the art of tap, which, though perhaps not dead, has at least been visited by a priest. But you wouldn’t know it from the energy onstage, as the ensemble taps and twirls through quicksteps and marathon medleys. And with each heel drop and toe tap, every shuffle and flap, the argument for tap’s return grows stronger. Clickety clack. Clickety clack.

It’s like subversive Morse code tap-telegraphed to the brain, a message on repeat: tap dance is cooler than you thought… tap dance is cooler than you thought… tap dance is cooler than you thought…

I just wish the story gave them more to dance about.

Currently onstage at Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Syncopated Avenue runs through May 25.

Pictured: Syncopated Avenue on the WBTT stage. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.