Frollo (Kaleb McFarland) is shown in a scene from the musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” which opens Friday at the Youngstown Playhouse. (Submitted photo)

The musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” makes its area debut with a production opening Friday at the Youngstown Playhouse.

Trevail Maurice, who is co-directing the show with Kiara Jones, is no stranger to helming big musicals. He directed the Playhouse’s productions of “Dreamgirls” and “The Color Purple,” the latter being staged at Powers Auditorium.

As an African-American male, Maurice said he could relate to the stories in those musicals, which have predominantly African-American casts.

“Our perceptions are based on our experiences in life,” he said. “I understand that experience. I haven’t experienced the world in France in 1482. I had to do a lot of research, disecting the material and putting in time to understand a completely different culture. The culture is different from five years ago, much less hundreds of years ago.”

But the more research he did, the more similarities he found. Just like the singer Effie in “Dreamgirls” and Celie in “The Color Purple,” Quasimodo — the deformed bellringer who lives in the bell tower of Notre Dame — is an outcast because he doesn’t fit societal norms.

“He was born into this world that way, like Lady Gaga says. He’s mistreated because of how he looks and doesn’t fit into society,” Maurice said. “My previous shows dealt with that, being black and trying to fit in the music industry or how do you be Celie when you’re told you’re not intelligent, smart or beautiful, how do you make your own way in this environment?”

Maurice initially got involved with the show working with former Playhouse Artistic Director Joshua William Green, who was going to direct. When he resigned to resume his acting career after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted, Maurice as asked to take over.

“I’d only say yes if my team is available,” he said. “I had to get my team back together.”

The team includes Jones, who also serves as choreographer; Mazhorell Johnson, musical director; Anthony “Coot” Madison, stage manager; Jacinda Madison, production manager; Johnny Pecano, production coordinator; Ellen Licitra, lighting designer; and Leslie Brown, Jack Hanna and Sindy Hannah, set designers.

“They’ve all be phenomenal in assisting me in the last three productions,” Maurice said. “I couldn’t do it without them. This theater doesn’t work without them.”

Maurice had experience with some of the actors as well, but it’s his first time working with Landon Talbert, who plays Quasimodo, and Kaleb McFarland, who plays the antagonist, Frollo.

Talbert auditioned early for Maurice because he had a conflict when the open auditions were scheduled. Talbert is a wrestler, and the director initially planned to consider him for the role of Captain Phoebus.

“He wanted to audition for Quasimodo,” Maurice said. “When he opened his mouth to sing, what a surprise. Me, Mazhorell and Kiara walked out that evening thinking, ‘We found our Quasimodo’ … People will truly fall in love with him. He’s so gentle, so committed to the body transformation.”

McFarland also wanted to play Quasimodo, but the director said he believes Frollo may be the more difficult role.

“Whoever was going to play the priest needed to bring three dimensions of levels to the character,” he said. “He needed to go to dark places, like the guy who played The Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ (Heath Ledger) … When he sang ‘Hellfire,’ we all fell out of our chairs. We were blown away by what he presented to us.”

The rest of the cast includes Desiree Hargrave, Nathaniel Ams, Ben Bogan, Michael Macciomei, John Weber, Lynn Ohle, Sam Early, Thomas Fields, Ethan Bolls, Tyler Moliterno, Stephanie Cassano, Wayne Bonner III, Emma James, Lohgan Talbert, Emily Royer and Maurice.

The stage musical is based on the 1996 Disney animated feature and includes the songs Alan Menken (“The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin”) and Stephen Schwartz (“Wicked,” “Godspell,” “Pippin”) wrote for the film. The stage version features additional music and draws more heavily on Victor Hugo’s 1931 novel.

“There is some harsh content,” Maurice said. “This is not your ‘Frozen,’ ‘Shrek’ type of musical. It’s kind of an adult musical, but 10 and up should be able to see it.”