"The Glorious Ones" creative team: Lynn Ahrens, Graciela Daniele and Stephen Flaherty Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Stage Review: Flaherty and Ahrens present their latest musical collaboration

"A play is like a dinner for six with Mozart playing," says Graciela Daniele. "A musical is like a chaotic Italian family dinner for 20, in the summer, at the beach."

Which partly explains why, for the premiere of their new musical, "The Glorious Ones," based on the novel by Francine Prose, creators Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens and producer Ted Pappas enlisted Daniele, a Theater Hall of Fame director and choreographer.

Her analogy to the tumult of a big Italian dinner is apparently true even with this relatively small musical with just seven performers: "With them and Lynn, Stephen and the musical director all talking to me at once, I still have to say, 'Quiet, children, please!' "

Daniele can say that with the authority of personality and experience. Inducted into the Hall of Fame last year, she began as a ballet dancer in her native Buenos Aires. Inspired by seeing "West Side Story" in Paris, she moved to New York and worked with all the legends: Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse, Agnes DeMille, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. She also cites two idols, Julie Taymor and Martha Clarke.

She made her Broadway debut in 1964 and went on to perform in the original "Follies" and "Chicago." Soon she was a choreographer for such hits as "The Pirates of Penzance," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and Flaherty and Ahrens' "Ragtime." She added direction on such as "Once on This Island" and "Annie Get Your Gun." In all, she has 10 Tony nominations and is frequently called in to "doctor" a show, as with the current "The Pirate Queen," where she's credited with the musical staging.

Two Broadway collaborations were with Flaherty and Ahrens, and she also directed and choreographed their "Dessa Rose" at Lincoln Center. "I never say no to Lynn and Stephen," she says. "We're family after so many years; we're not afraid of saying the wrong thing."

She says she learned from Fosse that you can do a project for money, when you apply your craft but don't get emotionally involved; as a favor, as Daniele did in directing Chita Rivera's recent Broadway showcase; and for love, in which case, you might even spend your own money, too.

"The Glorious Ones" is clearly in this third category. But it's also Daniele's favorite kind of work. What she likes best, "especially with Lynn and Stephen, is to start with the seed, the 'what about if?,' and see it grow."

With "The Glorious Ones," it's been a long germination, Flaherty told the Post-Gazette in 2005. "Some projects just erupt, but this one is simmering." The problem was "that old devil, getting the book to work." What started out big, linear and traditionally theatrical has developed into an inventive ensemble piece in which actors play many characters.

Some may already be familiar with two of its songs. "I Was Here" has been performed in concert by Patti LuPone and Brian Stokes Mitchell and is included in "The Ahrens & Flaherty Songbook." Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley chose "Opposite You" as the title track for their recently released album of duets.

Daniele remembers that she was involved with the first draft "eight or 10 years ago" when they did a reading. When it was ready to produce, and wanting to give it birth away from the hot house atmosphere of New York, they called Pappas. He'd wanted to work with Ahrens and Flaherty for some time, especially given Flaherty's ties to Pittsburgh, and Daniele says she's known Pappas for more than 30 years.

All agreed the show needed a workshop, because the world of 17th-century Italian commedia dell'arte is so physical. "We had to do a lot of research," says Daniele, who loves that, because "it gives me energy." She's been in love with commedia since she danced in "Petrouchka" as a teenager and a favorite movie was "Les Enfants du Paradis." She points out that the comic techniques of commedia show up in the great silent film comics, such as Chaplin and Keaton, and continue with Lucille Ball and Steve Martin.

"Children do it all the time," she says. Pratfalls arouse "innocent laughter -- human laughter -- as opposed to intellectual. To slip on a banana peel, it's very visceral, primal. But it's not easy: It has to be so specific."

The three-week workshop, an unusual and expensive commitment by the Public, was in New York last fall. "By the end of the workshop, we knew the structure was there, the architecture."

Daniele first came to Pittsburgh with a ballet she did for Ballet Hispanico, and she has a second-hand connection through her husband, lighting designer (and Hall of Fame member) Jules Fisher, a CMU grad. Now, she discovers Pittsburgh is "a very theatrical town."

In between that fall workshop and rehearsals here, she found three months to go to the aid of director Frank Galati (her colleague on "Ragtime") and "The Pirate Queen." She spent two weeks with authors Boublil and Schonberg, then worked on the staging. "I could help move the show better, but not assume responsibility for the original creativity."

Of course, that paycheck helped subsidize her non-commercial work on "The Glorious Ones." And as she says, "Working is always going forward, especially with good people; not working is going back."