Sweet Sue’s got a lot to juggle.

She’s trying to make it as a musician in Prohibition-era Chicago while avoiding trouble with the gangsters who run the town and the authorities looking to crack down on speakeasies. Then Sweet Sue tosses a few more balls in the air when she decides to form an all-female band and tour from Chicago to San Diego.

And this comes in the first few minutes of “Some Like It Hot.”

“She gets things popping,” Sweet Sue actor DeQuina Moore told the Herald with a laugh. “She has a big dream, and runs a band, leads a band, at a time when this idea is not popular… but it’s when she decides to move on (from Chicago and the mobsters) that the fun starts.”

Inspired by the iconic film of the same name, “Some Like It Hot” — which runs Jan. 28 to Feb. 8 at Citizens Opera House — takes a lot of liberties with its source material. The basic plot is intact: A pair of male musicians need to disguise themselves as women and hide out in Sweet Sue’s band after witnessing gangsters commit murder. But through casting and some subtle twists, the musical deals with both modern and timeless themes.

“It touches on racism a bit, on sexism a bit, but the way that it’s done, the touches stay in the pocket of music, in the rhythm of the story,” Moore said. “A point is made and then you’re back to the fun so fast you don’t even realize what you have gone through to learn a lesson.”

Moore thinks the journey of Jerry, one of the male musicians, who becomes Daphne to hide from the mob, is a perfect example of this subtly. It’s clear that Jerry enjoys becoming the feminine Daphne, but the audience “is never hit over the head with this,” Moore said.

Moore can see these themes being an outsider and an underdog play out in her own character of Sweet Sue.

“Sue gets put in an uncomfortable place, a place where a lot of Black women have to sit,” she said. “Sometimes you want to do the right thing and you also have to deal with the real world. Sue has one line that goes, ‘We don’t have to make history, that’s not the goal. The goal is just to survive.’”

For the actors, it’s a challenge just to survive the rush of the performance.

The pace of the show and its show-stopping, MGM-musical style numbers doesn’t allow for long periods of introspection. From Sweet Sue’s big opening song to the train ride west to hopping over the border to Mexico and back, the characters have to navigate love, life, and high heels while mobsters and feds surround them.

“It’s a freight train, literally and figuratively,” Moore said with a laugh. “We do actually get on a train.”

For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com