THEATER : STAGE REVIEW : A Date With ‘Personals’ : A musical revue about the foibles of lonely singles looking for love offers lots of laughs.

In all likelihood everyone has pondered placing a personal ad in the newspaper. Why not? Especially if you’re lonely, and shy, and have tried everything else.

Some of the foibles of doing so are the basis for a bright, funny, witty musical revue at Actors Alley that takes some old looks, some new, some borrowed, some blue, at placing and answering “Personals,” and a few of the consequences.

The book and lyrics by David Crane, Seth Friedman and Marta Kauffman (with music by half a dozen others) can’t help but veer away from its basic idea, into some side roads near but not close to the title. It delves into a broken marriage, the chance meeting of a couple of dorks who have gone through the same taped course in dating, and other romantic folderol. But it’s mostly clever, often fresh and always entertaining.

Most of the lightness and pizazz of the evening comes from the sleight of hand of Darrin Baker, credited with direction and musical staging, and his choreographer, Wendy Walter. Baker has an innate sense of fun, and a feel for comic timing, which keeps a show that sometimes comes close to trite always surprising. And Walter’s choreography is inventive and free of cliches.

The cast members (Linda Griffin, Gary Imhoff, Valri Jackson, Peter Kevoian, Sandy Rosenberg and Clayton Staggs) play specific characters in running gags and stories, but also make themselves look double their number by playing “Others,” significant and otherwise. Staggs is particularly adept at this, often getting big laughs by just walking onstage in a new identity.

They are all to the revue manner born, buoyant and energetic. And they know their way around a song, from Griffin’s touching memorial to a marriage that is no more (“Michael”), to Imhoff, Staggs and Kevoian’s good ol’ beer-drinking buddies imagining a return to the “Second Grade,” which they wish they’d never left. Jackson and Rosenberg blend like gangbusters, vocally and emotionally, as girlfriends who are roomies between relationships in “I Could Always Go to You.”

Musical director Stephen Bates keeps the tempos just right, whether the show is reading its choice personal ads or taking its side roads into the everyday world of the big Relationship.

Where and When What: “Personals.” Location: Actors Alley, 12135 Riverside Drive, North Hollywood. Hours: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 13. Price: $18 to $20. Call: (818) 508-4200.