DEXTER, Mich.–If you have not seen West Side Story in a while, as was the case for me and a group of patrons seated behind me, you can forget how perfect a stage musical this play really is. And in the hands of a pull-the-stops-out effort by The Encore Musical Theatre in Dexter, it could well be the show to see this summer if you see nothing else.

Not that I am recommending you see nothing else.

How does little Encore Musical Theatre go all out? Artistic director and co-founder Director Dan Cooney, who is now on the faculty of Roosevelt University in Chicago, brought some of his School of Performing Arts students to the production, mixed them with some Actors Equity performers and a few of the best Encore regulars and directed the show himself. It’s an expensive show, but well worth the outlay.

You should know the plot of one of the best known shows ever to leave Broadway for regional theatre. Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the play, conceived by Jerome Robbins for a 1957 debut, with book written by Arthur Laurents and music by an amazing combination of Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, the play moves the story to Eisenhower-era immigration of Puerto Ricans who settled in New York City.

Instead of the Montagues and Capulets, it’s the American Jets street gang and the Puerto Rican Sharks gang. And Maria (Aurora Penepacker), sister of the Sharks leader, Bernardo (Eric Rivas), is in love with the Jets’ Tony (Conor Jordan). But Tony is a reluctant Jet, having left the gang a month or so before our story begins to straighten his life out and start a legit existence as a stock and delivery boy at the local drug store.

The forces of tension between the gangs builds to a crescendo of violence despite Tony’s attempts to act as diffuser. And just as in the Shakespeare that the story is based on, tragedy comes in the end.

West Side Story was the “Hamilton” of its day. It changed the way patrons, writers, composers and producers viewed Broadway musicals. It combined Shakespeare with brilliant music, ballet, and of course elevated Latino talent in a way that had not been done before in a mixed-culture cast.

You’d have to be blind not to see the relevance today of a gang war, even one as stylized as this one for stage, between whites and Latinos. This, of course, is the beauty and currency of great art–it never stops being relevant. Would it take much to adapt this play to depict a romance between a white border guard and a Honduran woman seeking asylum?

There really aren’t any weak links in the principal cast. Mr. Jordan and Ms. Penepacker play a compelling Tony and Maria with very good stage chemistry. And Ms. Penepacker’s vocals are outstanding. Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend and Maria’s best friend, is played by Marisa Rivera, and just as Chita Rivera practically stole the spotlight from Carol Lawrence in the original stage production and Rita Moreno did the same in the film, Ms. Rivera is wonderful in the role in both her singing and acting. Keith Kalinowski, who plays Lt. Schrank, a bad-egg anti-Latino cop, makes the most of a few scenes and stands out as well.

Blessed with a cast of excellent dancers, choreographer Matthew Brennan has whipped this show into a quality effort with Dan Cooney that is worthy of a touring show in much bigger houses.

The set design, by Sarah Tanner, of a cityscape and “yard,” outside of apartment building windows, with piped railings and fire escape that adapts to any outside scene, makes maximum and superb use of Encore’s small space. Costumes were nearly all right for the period, but for the jeans, which are pretty hard to come by today in the late 1950s style, so we can easily forgive. On the whole, costumes were excellent.

And the songs, my God, the songs in this show. “Maria,” Somewhere,” “America,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Cool,”…there is not a dud in the whole show, which is a rarity even with classic, broad, Broadway musicals. There’s often one stinker, but not in West Side Story. And music director Tyler Driskill leads a flawless ensemble that stands up well to this timeless material, doing it more than justice.

Encore may be in little Dexter, but it is doing big shows and this one could be playing at The Fisher in Detroit or The Wharton Center, or Off Broadway and be right at home and up to those stages.

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