“I think I’m probably the last person who’s been involved with the festival every season since its start,” says Dennis Razze, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Associate Artistic Director.

PSF, founded in 1991, has its 25th anniversary for the 2016 season.

“I kind of started out as director of ‘The Green Show’ and also an actor. Now I’m the Associate Artistic Director and I think I directed the top four-selling productions the festival’s ever done.”

That included “Les Miserables,” which Razze directed and which sold out all of its performances to open PSF’s 2015 season.

This year, Razze again directs the PSF season-opener, “West Side Story,” June 15 - July 3.

“It is a lot of pressure,” says Razze. “I think the biggest part of the pressure is almost working a year to prepare to direct the show, and you have three weeks [of rehearsal] to make it happen.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work with the same group of collaborators for a number of years now and, No. 1, is Stephen Casey, who’s going to choreograph the show. And I think of him [Casey] as the lead artist on this particular production because, in many ways, ‘West Side Story’ is all about the dance.

“The man who originally conceived the story, Jerome Robbins, was director and choreographer in the original production. We’re kind of dividing that into two persons. Luckily, Stephen and I think like one person. We’ve worked together for so long that we literally know how the other person thinks.

At PSF, Razze directed and Casey choreographed “Les Miserables,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Oklahoma!,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “1776.”

“The cast that Stephen [Casey] and I have been working with every year is a different group of people. We have to gain their trust in three weeks. And that is daunting because they have no reason to trust us. Artist and actor put themselves at the behest of the director and choreographer. If they don’t think they can trust your aesthetics, it’s gong to be a really tough rehearsal period.

“It becomes absolutely esential that Stephen [Casey] and I are incredibly prepared so that we can build that trust. And that actually starts with the audition process. Stephen taught them steps and I gave them direction in the audition hall. Already, in their intital contact with us, they have formed an impresssion, as we have with them.

Demanding show

“With ‘West Side Story,’ there’s probably not another show in the musical theater canon that demands the artist that is the triple threat [acting, singning, dancing]. I think one of PSF’s great strengths is to bring together groups of actors who are the best we can find for the particular shows we are casting.

“For ‘West Side Story,’ we’ve cast a group of strong young actors, almost all of whom have danced the show before. Many of them have been in the national tours of the latest Broadway production. The guy who’s playing Riff, Nathan Madden, was last seen in ‘An American in Paris’ on Broadway. And Tony and Maria played those roles at the Signature Theater [Arlington, Va.], which is one of the foremost theaters in the country right now. Austin Colby is Tony. MaryJoanna Grisso is Maria. These guys are heavy-hitters. And the whole cast is like that. We had to find people who are capable of this level of dance. That was the key.”

It’s a PSF debut for “West Side Story.” Razze directed the musical twice at DeSales.

“My first experience with ‘West Side Story’ was when I played Tony. And I fell in love with the actress who played Maria. But she had a relationship with my understudy,” says, Razze, a DeSales graduate.

“West Side Story” is comparable to “Les Miserables” in its demands. There’s a cast of 37 with a 14-piece orchestra, conducted by Nathan Diehl.

“I think it’s so timely right now to be doing the show because the No. 1 political issue in this election seems to be immigration. Jerome Robbins had said the key theme of ‘West Side Story’ is tolerance. That’s something we all have to learn in this day and age. We have to keep remembering that this country was founded by immigrants,” says Razze.

“We certainly made it a goal to cast as many Latin American actors as we could find. There’s a great diversity of ethnic types in the cast,” Razze says.

“One thing we’re doing with this production that’s diffrerent is that we’re using projections on a large scale, projections of period photography. The production is set iin 1957, which is when it premiered, but it’s going to have, we hope, a modern edge to it. The production style is going to be very contemporary. The costuming is going to be of the late ‘50s, but because a lot of those styles have been reinvented and brought back a lot of the clothing is going to be contemporary clothes with that look of the period.”

Razze says a through-line that he sees for PSF’s 25th anniversary season is that of the role of women in society.

“The rep is ‘Taming of the Shrew’ and ‘Blithe Spirit.’ I think both of these plays have to do with central characters who are strong women. These plays are very much about the battle of the sexes. We’re talking about the possiblilty of the election of a woman president and the parity of wages between men and women. I think these plays are going to resonate with that struggle.

“Patrick [Mulcahy, PSF Producing Artistic Director] got very excited about doing ‘Julius Caesar.’ It’s about revolution and rebellion. That particular play is continuingly fascinating because we’re always just one step away from chaos. The whole notion of government is a fragile one. We’re constantly reminded of that in various scenarios around the world and even in our own governemnt, where it’s possibly to be very patriotic and have great mistrust of those in power at the same time.

Shakespeare 400th

“We wanted to do do three Shakespeares this year because it is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. So, it was imporant to us to have a strong core of Shakespearean plays in the mix.

“I think it’s a great season. Ticket sales are really terrific. The festival seems to be at a peak right now. It’s been really gratifying to see the support grow.

“The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is among the top five or six Shakespeare festivals in the country, which I think is amazing because it’s a seasonal festival and not a year-long festival. I think the secret to our success has been to really be very choosey about the directors, designers and actors who are brought to Center Valley. And we’ve been fortunate to attract some really amazingly talented people to come here. They’re attacted to the word that is out there about the quality that goes on here.”

“The theater artistic community is rather small. Word spreads very quickly among theater artists where good work is going on. It hasn’t been difficult at all for that notion to spread.

“It’s been harder to spread it to audiences outside of our local area. But ticket sales definately are up, and now that that’s happening the word is spreading out to a much larger area. Unless you get the ‘Today Show’ or The New York Times or ‘60 Minutes,’ it’s very difficult to spread the word in this country.

“American has been really dependent on what has been called the regional theater movement. This is where you have professional theaters that serve diifferent regions of the country because the country is so large and not everybody can go to New York or Los Angeles. I would say that some of the best theater in this country is happening regionally.

“The variety and artistic risk that is going on in American theater is just exhilarating and thrilling to witness. Just when you think the American musical theater is struggling, something like ‘Hamilton’ comes along.

“Father Schubert was extremely courageous to come up with the idea to start a Shakespeare Festival here in the Lehigh Valley. This was no easy task to get the support and funding to create a truly professoinal theater right here in the Lehigh Valley, producing professional theater right here.

“It was an inspired vision that the Lehigh Valley could become a home for the Shakespeare Festival. It took a lot of hard work on his part to make the dream a reality.

“I followed his [Father Schubert’s] lead. He always had the words to inspire all of us, to scale new heights. But it was always his vision.”

Even after his retirement, Schubert was a constant presence at PSF board meetings and rehearsals.

“By the time of the last season, he was very proud of the work that Patrick [Mulcahy] had done to build on what he had done.

“I’m sure his [Father Schubert’s] spirit is going to be in every corner watching what we do.”

Tickets: pashakespeare.org, 610-282-WILL (9455)