If you've seen that rather naughty and even nasty 2003 movie, Thirteen, you've seen how director/writer Catherine Hardwicke, along with star Nikki Reed, imagine early teens: drugs, sex and a few piercings. Yet the world premiere musical at LA's Mark Taper Forum, revisits a more innocent and perhaps total fantasy world that is purely G-rated. The most the popular boy, Eddie (Christian Vandal - his own Web site indicates he's 15), lusts only for a French kiss from the beautiful, blonde Kendra (Emma Degerstedt, 14).

You wonder who the true audience is for this cheery, upbeat musical. It stars a cast of all unknowns who, the program lets us know without a doubt, are young teens. Not one was over the age of 15 when the program was published. Even the band is a crew of young teens, or least young looking.

The theme song, "Thirteen!" by Jason Robert Brown, who handled both music and lyrics, will mindlessly play in your head, although I can only remember the refrain "thirteen" and nothing more.

Set in Appleton, Indiana, this musical centers around a young boy whose parents have divorced and his mother moves him away from the cool, urban NYC to a hick town. Nothing as cool as Footloose happens here, although surely one of these actors has some connection with Kevin Bacon. In Footloose, Bacon played a senior in high school who danced.

Here we have Evan (Ricky Ashley). He is worried about not being popular, being labeled a geek (what happened to the geek cool of techno superiority?), and having no one come to his bar mitzvah. Yes, that's right. All the angst here is over the important party of a Jewish boy.

Dan Elish (book) has written in some other subplots so we can wrap things up with a few morals. We have the pretty girl's best friend, Lucy (Caitlin Baunoch, an eighth grader - do your own math), jealous of her friend's attempts to become football hero Eddie's girl - a deal sealed with a French kiss. Archie (Tyler Mann, also an eighth grader), is a physically disabled child on crutches with a crush on, of course, Kendra. Patrice (Sara Neimietz - no age, but a MySpace blogger) is the summer friend who Evan dumps in order to be cool.

Of course, Kendra is a cheerleader. I guess not much has changed in American high schools, yet somehow I doubt that kissing was the only thing contemporary 13-year-old girls and boys thought about, and I imagine that means their actual dialogue has to be much more trashy, particularly amongst an all-guy group.

This reminds me of one of those family value TV programs like That's So Raven or Hannah Montana, which is safe programming for 13-year-olds, but I wonder if it isn't meant for younger children and to comfort adults (who might force 13-year-old kids to watch). Unfortunately, with the price of tickets and the time (8 p.m. curtain), most of these kids won't be able to see this musical, which ends its run on February 18.

In the end, this is a great showcase for young, up-and-coming musical comedy stars, but not satisfying for adults. Maybe this 90-minute, no-intermission musical really belongs on TV.