"The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd" is a famously problematic musical. Originating in England and opening on Broadway in 1965, the piece is an allegory about the British class system that, as a production, employed elements of the music hall tradition.

Many of the songs became successes. Nina Simone's recording of "Feeling Good" turned the tune into a standard; it has been covered by acts ranging from Michael Buble to Muse. Tony Bennett had a hit when he recorded "Who Can I Turn To?"

But the show itself never got a foothold and has rarely been staged since the 1960s.

Two theater pros and pals, though, have joined forces to bring a fresh approach to "Greasepaint," and they are staging the piece starting Friday at Goodspeed's Terris Theatre in Chester.

That duo is Don Stephenson, who directed "Guys and Dolls" last year at Goodspeed, and Liza Gennaro, who choreographed 1991's "The Most Happy Fella" and "Kiss Me Kate" there. (She is also the sister of Michael Gennaro, who became Goodspeed's executive director in early 2015.)

Stephenson and Gennaro, who have enjoyed working together before, were looking for a new project. They came across "Greasepaint."

While "Greasepaint" has languished since its Broadway run, Stephenson and Gennaro devised a way they thought they could make the piece work for modern-day American audiences.

Stephenson says the score, which includes "The Joker" and "Nothing Can Stop Me Now," "is really what drew me to (the show) and really what draws everybody to do it — these amazing songs, and the songs are heartbreaking, rip-your-guts-out kind of songs, just so emotional. I wanted to make the show as accessible as the songs already were."

Stephenson and Gennaro spoke with Leslie Bricusse, who wrote "Greasepaint" with the late Anthony Newley, about their idea. They got his blessing.

Stephenson says that, in "Greasepaint," Bricusse and Newley "write about love and loss and heartbreak and happiness and the betrayal and lying, and it is life. They cover all aspects of life."

The two main characters are Sir, an upper-crust man, and Cocky, a lower-class bloke. As they play a game (the game of life, of course), Sir is perpetually changing the rules. That always leaves poor Cocky on the losing end.

Stephenson didn't believe Americans would be interested in an allegory about the 1960s British class system, but he did think that there was a way to do the show that would appeal to contemporary audiences.

"I mean, just turn on the news, and you see the haves and the have-nots, right?" he says, pointing to reports about the shrinking middle class and about people working multiple jobs but still unable to make a living.

The show, then, seems to have a great deal to say about today's world and about the U.S., according to Stephenson.

In the original, the set was like a quirky Monopoly game board that was cocked up on one end, and a collection of urchins functioned as a Greek chorus.

"So the set wasn't real, the urchins weren't really of a real world. I thought what I need to do is, I need to put this in some kind of reality. I need to give it a specific time and place and a set of circumstances. If I do that, it will give me the who, what, where and why of the characters — who are they, what are they doing, why are they behaving the way that they are, and how have they ended up in this situation?" he says.

He took his cue from the script, where characters speak about wishing things were the way they used to be and about the world blowing up. They talk about not having food or drink and about going hungry.

Stephenson says that points to a dystopian existence, where the world was destroyed by something, and so the Goodspeed production shifts the action to a dystopian world. It doesn't specify what caused that, but, Stephenson says, "It gave me a way to get into it and it gave me a specific setting and it answered all of the problems from the book."

Now, the game the characters are playing makes more sense; they're playing for something specific — for food.

All this said about "Roar of the Greasepaint," Stephenson is quick to note that this is also "a really funny show and they do it in a funny way. Of course, there are moments of seriousness, but there's lots of comedy, there's lots of dancing. It's crazy, cuckoo. ... They're all a little nuts, the characters. That gives us license to go anywhere and do anything we want."

Stephenson and Gennaro have trimmed the number of characters, from about 16 in the original to four here. They have combined some and reconsidered the character in the original named the Negro, who won the game and gave Cocky hope that he might, too.

"It was written in the middle of the civil rights movement in the '60s. Their original idea, I think, was to bravely take on those kind of issues and give voice to this disenfrachised group who had no voice, the African-American people in the '60s — who will listen to them, do they get to speak, do they get to be heard?" Stephenson says.

"Liza and I thought long and hard about who is that now? How can we honor that idea of giving voice to a disenfranchised, voiceless group? We came across the idea of making it a person who you can't tell if they're male or female, you can't tell what their race is, if they're black, white or whatever. Because those seem like the people who don't have a voice. They're in the same position now as the African-American people were back in the '60s. In trying to honor the same intent of the original, I guess the cast of characters has changed, but the problems are the same," he says, referencing North Carolina's bathroom law that affects transgender people.

This, he notes, reflects "what Bricusse and Newley were trying to do in 1965 — give a voice to people who had none."

"The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd," The Terris Theatre, 33 North Main St., Chester; opens Friday and runs through June 26; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Wed., 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 3 and 8 p.m. Sat., and 2 and 6:30 p.m. Sun.; tickets start at $49; (860) 873-8668.