'Chix 6': Don't dump a comic book heroine

"You'll always carry a torch for me, Blaze." So writes Lourds Lane in one of a dozen playful songs that make "Chix 6" such a tease.

"We're trying to position ourselves as an in-town, out-of-town tryout space," says executive director Ray Collum, whose Queens Theatre is presenting this indie rock musical, which producers aim to bring to Broadway.

Lane, a native of nearby Jamaica, wrote the songs and book for this tale of a comic-book illustrator whose superheroines leap off the drawing pad. Katie, sung with torch-song urgency by Carrie Manolakos, is under the thumb of her rock-star-wannabe boyfriend, Jay, played by Brian Gallagher as a whining layabout.

Katie anonymously created her first comic-strip sensation, Lightning Girl, at age 15. Jay gets his break when a record label signs his band. Now, it's all about Jay. Katie reacts by turning to her art. Blaze (Celina Carvajal) is a spike-haired biker type. Seven (Nicolette Hart) is stylishly outrageous with her ice-cream-cone hairdo and bubblegum shades (costumes by Chris March). Mama-Mazing, a no-nonsense Danielle Lee Greaves, questions whether Jay's got what it takes in bed, while Rise, a schoolgirlish cartoon as played by Lourds, recalls Katie's misfit feelings as a kid. Molly Tynes' Lola Touché plays hard to get with bedsheet aerial acrobatics.

Their comic-book empowerment fails Katie when Jay dumps her. The split lasts only through intermission as Jay returns with an ulterior motive. He wants Katie to reveal herself as Lightning Girl's creator at his CD launch. Her characters, fearing for their fictional lives, try to convince Katie she's playing the fool. They begin with the clown college "Circus Song" and close with a pop-quiz classroom lesson, anchored by Greaves' ribald "Mama's Looking for a Sex Slave."

Beowulf Boritt's scaffold set, supporting Julie McBride's rocking band, is anchored by vivid video creations by Port Jefferson native and Tony-winning designer David Gallo.

Director DJ Salisbury tries to propel the action forward. But just when "Chix 6" gathers momentum, repetition sucks the energy right out of the room. How many ballads does it take to get that Katie is heartbroken? How many aerial contortions to get this show off the ground? Lourds needs to ax "Chix 6" from an unwieldy two hours, 45 minutes. That is, if she wants a Broadway run instead of just a showcase.

WHAT "Chix 6"

WHEN | WHERE 8 p.m. today, tomorrow and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Tuesday, through Oct. 30 at Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park

INFO $42-$49; queenstheatre.org, 718-760-0064