Behind the scenes of the musical Camelot the actors and actresses laugh and joke with each other while practicing their scenes.

But on stage they don new personas, acting out the passion, pain and magic of the story.

Until June 12, Pennsylvania Centre Stage at Citizens Bank Theatre, 146 S. Allen St., will present Camelot, a musical based on the classic tale of the marriage of Arthur to the fair maiden Guinevere. The musical takes the audience through Guinevere's affair with one of Arthur's most famous Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot. Guest directed by Richard Sabellico, the show will feature a cast of actors who have come together specifically for this show.

Less than a week before the opening of the show, the actors and actresses took the stage in Citizens Bank Theatre for the first time. Despite the fact they had never performed on that stage, they already looked at home.

Even though the theater doesn't have an orchestra pit, music filled the air and voices rang in song. Yet, where the music was coming from was not apparent until Apichell pointed to the left side of the stage, where concealed behind the set sat a six-piece orchestra.

As Guinevere, played by Margaret Loesser Robinson, and Arthur, played by Clark Scott Carmichael, rehearsed the first scene on stage, the rest of the cast was backstage practicing upcoming scenes and joking around in the dressing rooms.

"The honest truth is this is one of the friendliest, most fun casts I've ever worked with," Rob Ventre, who plays Sir Sagramore, said. "We're doing a great show."

While the well-known musical, written by Alan Jay Lerner, has been performed on stages worldwide, this performance has been adapted from the original by Sabellico.

"I tried to focus on the love story," Sabellico said. "To me, that's what the play is about -- and sometimes that gets lost in all of the pomp and circumstance."

Traditionally, the musical is performed with a 29-person cast. Yet, in this version of the show, only nine actors are used to tell the story, Sabellico said.

"I also tried to make it more cinematic so each scene flows smoothly into the other," he said.

Brain Walker, who plays Sir Dinadan, said he likes how the relationships in the adapted version of Camelot are dealt with more intricately.

"Sometimes the real story gets lost and, in this adaptation, the truth of it was found again -- the love and the pain," he said.

In this performance, the character of Lancelot, played by Jeremy Hays, is different.

"He's usually played by a baritone and I'm a tenor. And, he's usually seen as a big Gaston type," Hays said referring to the villain from Beauty and the Beast. "This is a different vision of him - it's more real."

Hays said one of his favorite things about Lancelot is all of the levels to the knight.

"He's a big bravado-type guy, but he gets to fall in love," Hayes said.

Robinson mentioned some of the more serious issues that are highlighted throughout the musical.

"In the end, the story addresses issues in particular to women and women's sexuality -- and the stigma attached with it," she said. "People don't have affairs because they are bad people. And women are usually looked down upon more than men when that happens."

However, she said she loved the show for the time period and the romance of it.

"I'm sure it was pretty wonderful to live in that kind of world -- tragic, but it's also magical," she said.