It’s a cloudy Sunday at the Academy of the Performing Arts on Broadway and a crew of dancers is at the mercy of a nit-picking taskmaster who seems to be chastising and critiquing every miniscule move they make.

And a look at their collective faces reveals a common thread. They are all loving it.

For the taskmaster is none other than Roland Kirouac, that megawatt of kinetic energy who brought us the Olympic Torch Relay show, and the dancers are the cast of Sweet Charity, the Orangeville Music Theatre’s adaptation of the Bob Fosse musical that runs June 11-20 at the Opera House.

“It’s all good,” says dancer Kaylea Angus. “Everything takes time. There will be bumps along the way but eventually, we’re going to have an excellent show.”

Adds Lindsay French: “The fact it’s a Bob Fosse show means I have to be there. We sing, dance and act. It’s a triple threat thing.”

The show, which debuted on Broadway in 1966, is a story of a dancer-for-hire named Charity at a Times Square dance hall. It introduced the world to such wellknown standards as “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “Big Spender.”

It was Big Spender which lured Mr. Kirouac – a celebrated choreographer and director whose credits include the opening of the Skydome in Toronto and the 1988 Calgary Olympics, as well as CTV’s long-running “Pig and Whistle” – into the fold.

“Every dancer in the world wants to do Big Spender,” he explained. “It’s the definitive number of the Bob Fosse style.”

While it is a musical, Sweet Charity is essentially a bittersweet chronicle of lives hovering on the edge of the skids and dreams that will never be realized. It is based on the Frederico Fellini screenplay, “Nights of Calabria,” where the heroine is a prostitute who hopes to be delivered from her bleak existence.

For this particular production, however, Mr. Kirouac is looking to move away from the dark and dreary sets customary for this show. He wants to add “different looks to the show that didn’t exist before. I’m looking for colourful-looking sets and lights. (The set) will almost have a comic-book look; vibrant, surreal, nothing’s going to be real. It’s hyper reality.”

He wants the show to be fun, not seedy, and he doesn’t want the actors to be too harsh. “I’m for entertaining, rather than shocking, the audience.”

Still, Mr. Kirouac says that there is only so much planning that can go into a live theatre production before gut instinct takes over and carries it through. This differs it from film production, where each minute is meticulously planned.

“Intellect is a tool of the talented,” he says. “I have an idea of what I want, but I won’t be sure how to do it. There will come a time when I will let it go and stop thinking about it. I know it will come to me.

“After awhile, the show has to have a life of its own.”

For more information on the show and how to obtain tickets, visit the Orangeville Music Theatre website at orangevillemusictheatre. com or call 519- 941-3423.