Disney’s “Tarzan,” the stage musical based on the animated hit, will make its regional debut Wednesday at the Ramada Wagon Wheel Theatre in Warsaw.

The Wagon Wheel is the first non-equity theater in the country to produce the musical since it closed on Broadway in July 2007.

The Wagon Wheel production will feature a version of the script that has never been seen anywhere before, says the theater’s marketing director, Will Dawson.

The Broadway run was known for elaborate acrobatics and stunt work.

The Wagon Wheel version will be somewhat scaled down, says Brian Martin, who plays Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan.

“Our director, Scott Michaels, believes the flying elements and the huge production (in the original staging of the show) took away from the beautiful story that ‘Tarzan’ is,” he says.

“That being said,” interjects Alex Finke, who plays Jane, “people climb all over the set (in our version) and there are vines to swing on.”

Martin is a Wyoming native who is attending Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Finke is a Dayton native attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

They have gathered in Warsaw, as top-flight acting talent always does each summer, for a chance to emote and sing in some of the best musical theater this region has to offer.

Martin says it is “exciting to take on an iconic role.”

“I am just eager to have a chance to embody the strong, athletic, charming guy that he is,” he says. “That’s mostly what I am excited for.”

There is certainly a greater possibility in “Tarzan” for minor injury than there is in “The Importance of Being Earnest” and Martin says he has already suffered his share.

But, “pain is beauty,” is how Martin looks at it.

The role of Tarzan requires him to appear almost naked on stage, but even a casual glance at Martin while clothed lets a person know that he probably has nothing to worry about.

“I am very comfortable in my skin,” he says.

Martin says he loves the dreadlock wig designed by Jennifer Dow so much, he may try to grow dreadlocks himself.

For Finke’s part, she mostly has to appear in a Victorian dress, a prospect that has her giddy.

“The way (costume designer Stephen R. Hollenbeck) fits everything to your body is beautiful,” she says.

The simian characters in the show are approximated “Cats”-style, Martin says, with a unitard base and ape-like accents. He says they are more “like a representation of apes.”

Finke says “they embody the sprit of the animal.”

Martin says he and many of his fellow cast members have had to take classes in ape behavior.

Tarzan’s lack of acquaintanceship with the English language at first means Jane does most of the talking herself. But Finke says Tarzan, aka Martin, speaks volumes through body language.

Unlike most of the venerable theatrical properties that regional theaters produce, this “Tarzan” is still very much in flux.

Martin and Finke say they received an entirely new script on the first day of rehearsal with a new character that, obviously, hadn’t even been cast yet.

The dramaturge from Disney will be in the audience of one of the shows to see what works and what doesn’t.

spen@jg.net