42nd Street Moon, the San Francisco company that popularly presents musicals in concert, stakes its claim on the Lerner and Loewe gold-rush musical, Paint Your Wagon, March 26-April 13, 2003.

Paint Your Wagon — featuring an original book by Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe — opened at Broadway's Shubert Theatre on Nov. 12, 1951, playing 289 performances before closing July 19, 1952. The original cast included James Barton, Tony Bavaar, James Mitchell and Olga San Juan.

The show is set in 1853 California. There are plans afoot for an unrelated national tour and Broadway run of the largely-forgotten show, starring David Hasselhoff, the actor told Playbill On-Line. The Hasselhoff company would mark the first Broadway revival of the musical, which features such tunes as "I Still See Elisa," "Wand'rin' Star," "They Call the Wind Maria" and "I Talk to the Trees." The show spawned a 1969 film version with an altered plot that was harshly dismissed (Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood sang in it). According to observers, the musical, with a major early score by Lerner and Loewe (My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot), has not yet been exploited to its full potential as a property of lasting commercial value.

Paint Your Wagon centers on a mining camp that explodes into a boom town until the gold runs out. The romance of the plot concerns the daughter of the town's prosector founder. She falls in love with a Mexican miner (who gets to sing "I Talk to the Trees" and "Carino Mio").

2nd Street Moon performances play the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson (between Battery and Front) in San Francisco. Tickets range $15-$29. For ticket information, call (415) 978-2787 or visit http://www.42ndStMoon.org.