This is something of a forced marriage, the aesthetic analogue of the calculated matches that the young lovebirds in a commedia dell’arte scenario would connive to thwart. The resulting musical is a sweet but strange hybrid, both joyfully naughty and totally innocuous. It’s like a whoopee cushion that emits a wistful sigh. Still, Mr. Flaherty and Ms. Ahrens, longtime collaborators best known for “Ragtime” and “Seussical,” among other shows, are adept and agile songwriters.

If their scores are rarely groundbreaking, they are nicely varied, melodic and satisfying. “The Glorious Ones,” which opened last night at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in a plushly scruffy production from Lincoln Center Theater , includes a trunkful of well-made songs that showcase the lyric gifts of its high-spirited cast. Marc Kudisch dominates the proceedings, by rights and by the velvety richness of his voice, as the vagabond troupe’s confident leader, Flaminio Scala.

(He and two other characters here are historical figures.) Flaminio and his fellow players bustle forth in the opening sequence to announce the show’s nostalgic tenor and smell-of-the-greasepaint themes. “A wooden stage, an audience and a great actor,” muses Flaminio, as Mr. Kudisch radiates the glistening self-satisfaction of an actor who knows he’s in his element.

“This, my friends, is my idea of heaven!” “Actors can never get enough love,” adds the fellow who plays the grasping old men. “When the crowd applauds, it’s as if you’re in the arms of a lover.” “Our lives are like the play within the play,” reflects the comely young ingйnue.