“Flora the Red Menace,” at 1st Stage, was the first musical John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote together. As in their later musicals, it features a spunky heroine, this time a would-be fashion designer who struggles to find work in New York during the Great Depression. She creates an artists’ cooperative of bohemian young people and wants nothing more than to earn $15 a week. Instead, she meets the man of her dreams, Harry, a struggling artist who attempts to convert Flora to his Communist Party ideals. Flora is so in love with Harry that the difficulties of coordinating her job, her romance and the party don’t bother her until the end of the play, when she has to limit her loyalties.

Although a certain goofiness in the plot keeps “Flora” from being one of Kander and Ebb’s greatest musicals, it’s possible to hear in “Flora” foreshadowings of “Cabaret,” “Chicago” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” That is due in large part to the work of Music Director Paul Nasto, who created new orchestrations for this production, culling from the original 1965 Broadway production and the 1987 revival.