It’s a Wednesday and opening night is nine days away. Jo Anna Holt Mishler moves comfortably around the stage, as much at home there as anywhere. For Mishler, whose sent her life on the stage, directing and choreographing the Urbandale Community Theatre’s upcoming production of “Gypsy” is like embracing a favorite cousin.

The Broadway hit based on the life of burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee and her aggressive stage mother, Momma Rose, will be presented July 14-16 and July 21-23 at the Urbandale Performing Arts Center. Curtain times are 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

This is the fifth time Mishler has been involved in a production of the venerable musical. She has played Momma Rose twice, once in a Cedar Rapids Jaycees production and then again in 1986 at the Ingersoll Dinner Theater, and was involved in production while doing Actors’ Equity Association theater in St. Louis. The Urbandale Community Theatre’s production of “Gypsy” marks the fifth time it has been staged in Greater Des Moines, and many in the cast are reprising roles they’ve played before or taking on a new character.

Sorting it all out is a more complicated task than scientists James Watson and Francis Crick encountered when they unraveled the double-helix DNA structure and decoded biological blueprints.

For example, husband and wife Dale and Jo Berry both were involved in the Ingersoll production. Dale, a retired Drake University economics professor, and Jo, a recently retired marketing whiz, appeared as Herbie Sommers ,and Tessie Tura, respectively, in the Ingersoll production, and they’re cast as Pastey and Mazeppa this time.

Both Tessie Tura and Mazeppa are strippers and Jo Berry and Barbara Merrill Wagner switched roles in the Ingersoll and upcoming Urbandale productions. The time lapsed between productions is 20 years. “I like to say more like 50 years and 50 pounds ago,” Jo Berry says with sass that transfers well to the stage. “I get a lot more exhausted, and I … What’s the German word for sweat, err, perspire? I schwitzen Sie more.”

“Gypsy” was first staged in the metro area by the Des Moines Playhouse in 1964, five years after it debuted on Broadway. At age 40, Jack Mishler played teenager Tulsa in the 1964 production. At 82, he’s cast this time in dual roles as Pop and Bourgeron-Cochon.

The Playhouse presented “Gypsy” again in 1991, casting Gina Gedler as Momma Rose and Lloyd Von Hagen as Mr. Kringelein. Both reprise those roles in the Urbandale Community Theatre production. Von Hagen also had a part in the 1964 Playhouse production of “Gypsy.”

Oh, and Jack Mishler is Jo Anna Holt Mishler’s husband. The two met during an Ingersoll Dinner Theatre production. “That blonde is a good kisser,” Jack Mishler says, pointing to his wife as she directs a scene set on a vaudeville stage as he describes their first encounter. “She was playing the lead in ‘Mame’ and I had a small role, and she chased me every night,” he says with the impeccable timing of an accomplished actor. “I finally gave up.”

The Berrys, Mishlers and other actors with roles in “Gypsy” are part of a cadre of volunteers who are keeping community theater alive in Greater Des Moines. Between them, they have hundreds of plays to their credit, an abiding affection for one another and an enduring love for live theater.

Dale Berry, whose favorite roles among the 25 or so he’s played include Billy Flynn in “Chicago,” Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady,” the title role in “Dracula” and El Gallo in “The Fantastiks,” borrowed from the stage to add spice to his lectures at Drake University on macroeconomics and monetary theory.

“Theater has added a great deal to my life,” he says. “In many ways, it was familiar. I taught very, very large classes that were required, so I had a captive audience of anywhere from 100 to 215 people who didn’t really want to be there. You have to have something to keep their attention. There has to be some theatrics, some ability to entertain.”

Dan Chase, who plays Mr. Weber, is a 35-year of community theater, from Rock Island, Ill., to Denison in Western Iowa. Madeline Palmer-Chase, a fifth-grader at the Downtown School, has been cast in three roles in “Gypsy,” giving Dad another reason to love community theater. “It’s very cathartic to be able to be someone other than who you are,” says Dan Chase, who works at Mad Science of Central Iowa, which takes a theatrical approach to teaching science curricula to children ages 3-12. For him, theater is a near-perfect fusion of his interests.

For Jo Berry, community theater provides a venue for her to unbottle her flair for theatrics and, in doing so, give audiences a reason to smile. “If a show is well-written and has good songs, like ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Chicago,’ it’s like pizza and sex: If you get a hold of a bad piece, it’s still pretty good.”

She may muse that she would “hate to see theater die,” but there appears to be little chance of that happening, according to some of the people who have kept live theater going for decades at small venues.

“There’s a big burst of enthusiasm and interest,” says Jack Mishler, who’s been involved in theater in Greater Des Moines since the late 1930s. “For years, it was only the Playhouse and the Drama Workshop.”

As longtime theater icons like the Ingersoll and Drama Workshop fade, newer organizations like StageWest, which presents the Iowa Fringe Festival July 20-23; the Vaudeville Mews; and the Central Iowa Repertory Theatre Company, which staged the Iowa premiere of “Crowns” earlier this year, are offering the next generation of live theater in Greater Des Moines. “What’s taking place is more alive and interesting than it’s ever been,” Jack Mishler says.

With new players on the scene, venerable production companies like the Playhouse are raising the bar with productions like “Chicago,” which he says “forces everybody to do better things.”

In Jack Mishler’s mind, it’s clear one of those “better things” is the production of “Gypsy” under the skilled guidance of his wife.