Getting Lessons in Courage

A young girl who may have a life-threatening disease finds courage to face it after a magical meeting with the legendary Pecos Bill in “Pecos Bill and Billie,” a new musical at the Burbank Little Theatre.

This Actors’ Company holiday offering for family audiences, directed by Sandra Fleck, gets off to a forced start. Billie (Jessica Tivens) fretfully waits in the hospital with her father (Gregory Franklin) to have a crucial test done, but there’s no sense of a real father-daughter relationship between Tivens and Franklin, and Dad seems downright obsessive about that Pecos Bill storybook he’s carrying around.

His insistence on using it to answer all Billie’s concerns--”Think how Pecos would have handled this”--comes out with misplaced intensity.

The awkwardness pretty much ends, however, with Billie’s fantasy encounter with Pecos, which makes up the bulk of the play.

Franklin seems much more at home playing rootin’ tootin’ Pecos and he’s backed by an appealing and generally polished cast: Daniel Lench as the adage-collecting Beans, Charles Herrera as his sidekick Chuck, Daniel McFeeley as Pecos’ jealous brother Bull, Jennifer Jernigan as Yahoo Sue and Margaret Marca who tickles funny bones playing both a cynical steer and the fearsome Yowser monster.

That Pecos will inspire Billie with enough spirit to handle whatever’s coming is a foregone conclusion. The fun is in the comic exchanges, rollicking ensemble numbers choreographed by Jernigan and appearances by Yowser (McFeeley created the shaggy costume and befanged head). Toby Gilbert Bernstein’s crisp lyrics (he also wrote the book) and Marjorie Poe’s lively music are a kick.

“Pecos Bill and Billie,” Burbank Little Theatre, George Izay Park, 1111 W. Olive Ave., Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 3 p.m., through Jan. 10. Dark Dec. 25-27, Jan. 1. $6-$12; (818) 954-9858. Running time: 90 minutes.