HTY company player Bulldog plays the Diesel Shovel in acid green with a military, "Sir, Yes Sir," efficiency. Nara Springer Cardenas is the Electric Shovel, filled with bright attitude in a costume studded with rows of battery cells. Daryl Bonilla is a toxic yellow Nuclear Shovel, with flashing red lights and robotic diction.

Cynthia See plays the Steam Shovel who is old-fashioned enough to have a name of her own — Mary Anne — painted down her side. But Mary Anne is becoming an antique, with brittle springs and carrying her last load of coal. She's ready to retire to a small house, raise chickens and invite friends over to play Crazy Eights.

Mary Anne's best friend is her operator Mike, a good-hearted guy played with aw-shucks deprecation and down-home attitude by Reb Beau Allen. Mike doesn't have much business aptitude and is away buying polish for Mary Anne when the Steam Shovels place their bids to dig the basement foundation for a new town hall.

Jason Kanda is the friendless production boss, Mr. Swap, who agrees to let Mike and Mary Anne prove their boast that they can do the job in one day. But Mary Anne will be dismantled for scrap if they fail. "That's business in America — survival of the cheapest."

With the problem and the dilemma clearly established, the story moves fairly efficiently as a race against the clock develops. It eventually reaches a warmly satisfying conclusion when Mary Anne decides to give up shoveling to become a furnace in the new building.

Set designer Dan Gelbman meets production challenges with cut outs and pop-up scenery, and John Parkinson's lighting goes for a cabaret feel on the musical numbers.

The production does a good job of personifying machinery but falls a bit short of turning heavy equipment into a vaudeville act.

The HTY cast lacks the performance power to do full justice to the songs and dances, and the production numbers seem to slow down the story rather than enhance it. Granted, steam shovels are not as lithe as cats when it comes to choreography, but even the spotlight solos interrupt the action and don't stand on their own.