For all the hype that surrounds it, there’s nothing particularly new about “In the Heights,” the 2008 Broadway musical that opened Tuesday night in Shea’s Performing Arts Center.

Theater Review

“In the Heights”

Three stars (Out of four)

Musical through Sunday in Shea’s Performing Arts Center, 646 Main St. Tickets are $27.50-$62.50.

For more information: 847-1410, www.sheas.org.

Aside from its hip-hop bent and the odd pelvic thrust, the show is happy to stick to the tried-and-true formula of classic musical theater.

With its broadly painted characters, colorful neighborhood setting and persistently optimistic tone, the show is “Wonderful Town” in modern street clothes, or, if you like, “Fiddler on the Roof” transported from the shtetl to upper Manhattan. And that precise brand of musical comfort, in these months of worry over wars and economic outlooks, natural disasters and political malfunction, may be just exactly what we need.

Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the show’s irresistible, Salsa-infused score and good-natured lyrics, wrote the show as a love letter to the neighborhood where he grew up.

As the lights go up, we meet a faux-hawked punk spray-painting the awning of a corner bodega in Washington Heights. Soon enough we’ve met Usnavi (the perfectly dorky Kyle Beltran), who owns the bodega, lusts after the beautiful Vanessa (Sabrina Sloan) and cares for his aging abuela (Elise Santora), all while longing to return to his ancestral Dominican Republic.

Meanwhile, a dejected Nina (Arielle Jacobs) returns from a failed stint at Stanford, much to the disappointment of her parents and the delight of neighborhood boys Sonny (Shaun Taylor-Corbett) and Benny (Rogelio Douglas Jr.).

It’s a show with a few too many twists, turns and digressions for us to feel truly carried along on the journey of any particular character, and a few too many gratuitous dance numbers that might have been better spent on character development.

Some songs come off lopsided, others trite. Even so, the strength of the score (the delightful opening number and “No Me Diga” being standouts) and the sly, almost adolescent humor of the lyrics and book, make for a much-needed dose of optimism at a time when it’s sorely needed.