You probably know a few Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg songs from 1947 tuner "Finian’s Rainbow" -- "Old Devil Moon," say, or "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" And even if you don’t know the musical’s story, you probably know that its book has a rep as being stubbornly problematic.

But producers and creatives of the upcoming revival, opening at the St. James Theater Oct. 29, believe Harburg and Fred Saidy’s book holds up just fine, thank you.

Still, the downright wacky story sure does sound like a tough one to crack.

There’s this Irishman named Finian, see, who travels with his daughter to the American South to bury a proverbial pot o’ gold at Fort Knox. But it turns out he stole the gold from a leprechaun who, miffed, pursues Finian to the fictional state of Missitucky and wreaks all sorts of magical havoc there among the tobacco plantations.

For one thing, he mischievously transforms a bigoted white politician into a black man.

That kind of head-on examination of racism, thrown into what sounds more like a goofy musical entertainment, was a big deal in the 1940s.

And it later became a sticking point in the era of political correctness " particularly since in the original production, the actor playing the politico achieved the transformation by donning blackface.

Arthur Perlman, who is adapting the original book, knows a few things about people’s objections to the libretto. He used to be director of the Harburg Archive at NYU.

"There were a lot of questions about how PC it would be," he says. "People were concerned about race, and there were questions about whether to deal with tobacco " somebody wanted to turn it into peanuts."

Perlman says he has trimmed the book and rejiggered some elements in an effort to clarify character arcs and intentions. And in this version, the politician is played by two different actors " one white and one black.

The new Broadway incarnation, currently in previews, is a fully staged version of the well-reviewed Encores! concert presentation last spring. Warren Carlyle returns to direct a cast that includes Jim Norton, Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson and Christopher Fitzgerald.

David Richenthal, who produces "Finian’s" with Jack Viertel and Alan D. Marks, recognizes the gravity of some of the musical’s concerns, which include economic hardships that parallel contempo, post-downturn life.

"The book is astonishingly serious underneath its frivolity," he says. "But there was no question it was the right time. You ought to be in a recession, and you ought to have a president who is, ideally, half black and half white."

Another bloody prom night?

Get ready: "Carrie" is back.

Or at least it might be: Producers are putting together a 29-hour Equity reading of the notorious 1988 flop, planned for sometime this fall.

Producer Jeffrey Seller ("West Side Story," "In the Heights") won’t say much, except that the tuner’s original creators " composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford and book writer Lawrence D. Cohen " are revisiting and reworking their script.

Based on the Stephen King novel about a tortured telekinetic teenager who gets pushed too far on prom night, the show has taken on near-legendary status thanks to the disastrous bloodbath of its brief Broadway run.

Plenty of legiters will want to see it back on the boards " but with no production plans yet in place, it remains an open question whether "Carrie" will rise again.