'3HREE' SINGULAR SENSATIONS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Instead of full-scale intermissions, the one-act musicals of ``3hree'' are separated by ``three-minute pauses.'' In these intervals, the back wall of the Ahmanson Theatre is revealed and actors return to their dressing racks and makeup chairs to prepare for the next segment. Stage hands move new scenery into place and clear the earlier pieces. The house lights stay down and the orchestra provides no musical bridge.

In another type of show, the broken illusion might seem peculiar. Here it's very much in character for a play that - despite its showcasing of up-and-coming musical talent - feels like a valentine to some of the pioneers of musical theater. Whether its performers are dancing the Charleston at a 1920s social dance or having Charles Lindbergh give airborne advice to the captain of a balloon-propelled lawn chair in present-day New Jersey, ``3hree'' is a bag full of wonders.

Not that this should be entirely surprising. Directors Scott Schwartz and Brad Rouse, composers Laurence O'Keefe, Nell Benjamin, John Bucchino and Robert Lindsey Nassif - none of them yet household Broadway names - are working with big-name technicians. That the guiding force here is director Harold Prince, a man who knows a thing or two about how to craft a musical, doesn't hurt either.

The cast, almost entirely reassembled from ``3hree's'' debut production in Philadelphia, is as deft as it is versatile. Those full-view costume changes also remind us that the same nine actors are lighting up three musicals that are completely different in style, tone and musical demands. Credit musical director Lawrence Yurman as well.

Audiences playing ``pick your favorite'' will likely side with ``The Flight of the Lawnchair Man.'' Decked out in pastel hues with the splashiest musical numbers and looniest premise, ``Lawnchair Man'' is both the evening's finale and the segment that Prince himself directed. It's a gas, certainly.

But I was particularly taken with Rouse's work on ``The Mice.'' Adapted from a story by Sinclair Lewis about a Minnesota exterminator (played by John Scherer) and a tailor's wife (Valerie Wright) going to elaborate lengths to conduct an affair, ``The Mice'' is gleefully wicked yet bittersweet. Choreographer Rob Ashford works the cluster of mice-obsessed townspeople into a splendid wacked-out chorus, and the final waltz between the two lovers to a song called ``If You'd Be Mine'' is twisted yet romantic.

Segment 2, ``Lavender Girl,'' gets the nod for visual opulence. A dashing young Alabaman named Colin (Will Gartshore) is about to head out of town after one more blow-out dance. In the woods, he meets a beautiful and mysterious girl wearing a lavender dress (Rachel Ulanet) who agrees to be his date for the evening. He falls in love but, well, time isn't exactly on his side with this date.

For ``Lavender Girl,'' Walt Spangler's scenery and Howell Binkley's lighting go positively southern Gothic. We get a vine-drenched wood, a huge moon and the sparkle of a Roaring-'20s bash.

In ``Lawnchair Man,'' the setting becomes the sky. Perched in a lawn chair propelled by 400 helium balloons, pilot Jerry Gorman (Eddie Korbich) is discovering the joy of flight, much to the consternation of conventional flight lovers who think he's a dangerous kook. Back on earth, Jerry's supportive girlfriend Gracie (Donna Lynne Champlin, warm and brassy) is mission control ... and his biggest fan.

As it turns out, there is a thematic link between these three very different musicals. Call it a belief in the power of dreams and possibility, something that Prince and his stellar team of composers, designers and performers obviously possess in great amounts. ``3hree'' soars, and we're lucky to be along for the ride.

``3HREE''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through June 10.

Tickets: $35 to $70. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three and one half stars

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Eddie Korbich and Donna Lynne Champlin star in ``The Flight of the Lawnchair Man,'' one of a trio of one-act musicals that make up ``3hree.''