“Ain’t Misbehavin’� looks deceptively simple: Thirty songs associated with piano great Thomas “Fats� Waller strung together by a cast of five and a band of six.

But there’s more than just songs, as you’ll find in a high-octane revival of the 1978 Tony Award-winning best musical at the White Plains Performing Arts Center through March 16. There’s heart and soul and an irrepressible love of life.

Director Jerry Dixon — who gave an outstanding performance as Coalhouse Walker in WPPAC’s recent concert version of “Ragtime� — assembles a talented team of singers and instrumentalists who deliver a loving tribute to Waller, a Harlem Renaissance man as at home behind the piano as he was behind the microphone.

“Ain’t Misbehavin’� presents two dozen Waller compositions — from “Honeysuckle Rose� to “The Joint is Jumpin’� to the infectious title tune — and a handful of songs Waller didn’t write but made famous in performance.

Act 1 features more group numbers, while Act 2 offers each performer a chance to have the spotlight to himself or herself. There’s a quick third act, billed as a finale, which features songs that Waller made popular, such as “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,� “Two Sleepy People� and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.�

The two hours fly by, as Dixon & Co. keep things moving along at a toe-tapping good clip. You’ll likely leave the theater humming, with more spring in your step than you had when you entered.

As a revue, there’s no book to speak of, just wall-to-wall Waller, but the talented cast — Aisha de Haas, Eugene Fleming, Danielle Lee Greaves, Anastacia McClesky, Wayne W. Pretlow — are able to create characters within the songs to give them depth. Each of the 30 songs becomes a scene played out with music.

The singers have their moments to be serious or to cut it up a bit — and they take full advantage of the opportunity.
Take the song “Sisters� from “White Christmas� — with Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney — and turn it on its head and you’ll have “Find Out What They Like,� which turns into a showcase for Greaves’ considerable comedic talent.

Fleming, whose buttery baritone and smooth dance moves anchor the show, steps out in a slithering song that is not likely to win the endorsement of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

DeHaas can make her voice thin and reedy, a la Ella, and her rendition of “Squeeze Me� finds a singer at the top of her powers.

Anastacia McClesky sings an off-key, flat and funny “Yacht Club Swng� that was decades before those butchers from the early rounds of “American Idol.� In Act 2, she sings the heck out of “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now.�

Pretlow, whose rubbery face and quivering lips conjure Bert Lahr as much as Fats Waller, makes the most of the moments he’s given. His “Honeysuckle Rose,� sung to and then with Greaves, captures the playful way that Waller could dissect a song while performing it, keeping it fresh on the hundredth hearing.

A less-successful divergence from the expected was a down-tempo and sultry version of “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling,� typically bouncy and happy. While it would seem an interesting take, this version failed to convince.

Michael Arnold’s choreography is clever, as in “Handful of Keys,� when the cast slides left and right in a tight line, their arms intertwined and windmilling in unison.

This is a cast that can do up-tempo or slow it down — and they can deliver when called on to do comedy. But how would they handle the evening’s most affecting and powerful moment — the mournful “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue,� which ends Act 2?

With simple grace.

After 90 minutes of mostly fun and games, Dixon’s cast takes it all the way down, bathed in blue light, motionless, and sings Andy Razaf’s haunting lyric:

“I’m white inside
But that don’t help my case.
’Cause I can’t hide
What’s on my face.
What did I do,
to be so black and blue?�

Matthew Hemesath’s costumes find the cast in appropriate and colorful finery and Todd Edward Ivins’ set, well-lit by Joel E. Silver, has the feel of a bygone time — perhaps the Cotton Club of the Roaring Twenties — with three small tables set with lamps.

There’s a bandstand for the six-piece “Ain’t Misbehavin’� Band —musical director Carlton Astor Holmes III at the piano, Reggie Pittman on trumpet, Jay Brandford on saxophone, James Burton on trombone, Paul Beaudry on bass and Willard Dyson on drums — and a secondary, raised platform that is not put to full use here.

It would seem a great area for a solo, but Dixon brings his singers downstage-center for those and uses the platform mostly for entrances and exits and one final “curtain call� of sorts for the actors posing as Waller’s band.

Twice, Holmes’ piano glides downstage, putting “Fats� front and center, as he should be. Holmes, a prodigious pianist, keeps the reins on the band until, 20 minutes in, they let loose with all the brass they can muster on “How Ya Baby,� which leads into a jitterbugging spectacle, “The Jitterbug Waltz,� a nice blending of voices.

There’s a reason “Ain’t Misbehavin’� played more than 1,600 performances on Broadway. It effortlessly evokes another time and introduces Waller to new generations.

WPPAC producer Jack Batman’s formula of presenting classics of American musical theater has produced a powerful “Man of La Mancha,� a memorable “Ragtime� and, now, an “Ain’t Misbehavin’� that transcends time. In newspapers, they say three of anything is a trend.

And what a happy trend it is.

“Ain’t Misbehavin’�
Where: White Plains Performing Arts Center, City Center mall, 11 City Place, White Plains.
When: Through March 16. 8 p.m., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m., Sundays.
Tickets: $50 and $60.CQ.
Web: www.wppac.com.
With: Aisha de Haas, Eugene Fleming, Danielle Lee Greaves, Anastacia McClesky, Wayne W. Pretlow.