"Singin' in the Rain" was and is a movie first. James Rocco, director- choreographer of the stage version opening in the Community Center this week, fell in love with the musical in the same form everybody else did - with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor cavorting in technicolor.

"I hated it every time I saw it on stage," he said, taking a brief break from all-day Music Circus auditions one Saturday last month in the Cisneros Studios of Dance on Freeport Boulevard. But Rocco liked the score, loved the dances, the story of a silent movie star who gets a new career and a new romance at the advent of the talkies.

"I always thought it could work on stage."

The director is getting a chance to prove it. A second chance, really, since the 36-year-old New Yorker and his co-choreographer, Linda Goodrich, recently did a well-received "Singin' in the Rain" in Wichita.

The energetic, quick-to-smile Rocco -- he goes by Jamie -- likes to set himself challenges. That's the way he approached "Jesus Christ Superstar," his eye-opening 1990 revival in the Community Center. He hadn't even liked the music until he got into that show, which introduced the director to appreciative Sacramento audiences.

"Oklahoma," his first venture in the Music Circus tent last summer, was a challenge, too. "I wanted to understand what made it so great." The production was such a success that Rocco has been signed to direct four of the coming summer season's productions, starting with "South Pacific" in July.

But first, "Singin' in the Rain." When he paused to talk during a preliminary Sacramento visit, and then later over the phone from New York, Rocco was still casting the summer shows (auditions were held in New York and Los Angeles, too), and weighing ideas for all five Music Circus projects.

The challenge of "Singin' in the Rain" lies not just in the technical feat of that wet-look signature scene. It's also that the 1952 MGM movie is so memorable and that previous stage directors who have tried to capture its magic have failed, for the most part. A mid-'80s Broadway attempt fizzled. Rocco has a theory about why.

"What has been ignored is that you can't put the film on the stage," he said. "My idea is to instead focus on the stagecraft. The show is about the truth of performance. It's from the '50s. The book is by (Betty) Comden and (Adolph) Green, very funny. . . . The question is, how do you theatrically tell this same story?"

In Kansas, where he directed some of the same actors who will star in Sacramento, theatergoers asked Rocco how he recreated the movie. That made him feel good.

"But we didn't recreate the movie," he revealed. For example, in the famous title number, Rocco and Goodrich indeed have Michael Gruber, in the Gene Kelly role, up on the base of a lampost amid a downpour. "But I can't guarantee that he's on the lamp post for the exact same bars of music." The important thing is achieving the effect, the illusion, in the live medium.

Even in proven shows, Rocco poses himself problems. When he directs "Annie" in the tent this summer, he wants to take it apart, find out what makes it tick. "I'm not going to rewrite 'Annie.' I'm not stupid," he said. But with virtually all his life spent in show business -- as a tap-dancing tot, child actor, Broadway performer and in recent years predominantly a director -- Rocco sees himself as still laying a groundwork, serving an apprenticeship, learning from directors and authors who came before him.

"I'm not ready to hang it up and say, this is what I do: I re-create other people's shows," he said. "I'd like to apply what I learn to new shows." Rocco is co-creator of the cult hit "Nite Club Confidential" and the evolving rock musical "Shout!" and is helping to develop a show about singer Mario Lanza, scheduled to play Carmel early this summer. Meanwhile, he treasures the lessons of musical stage classics, and of theaters like Music Circus.

Broadway used to have a tradition of mentors, accomplished professionals such as Oscar Hammerstein, who nurtured newcomers.

"Michael Bennett ("A Chorus Line") was the last of those," Rocco said. Now the tradition resides in the regional theater, with people such as Music Circus producing director Leland Ball.

"To me, Leland is a grand man of the theater," Rocco said. "He spends a lot of time learning and caring about this field. . . . I wish I could be around Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I'm fortunate to be around Leland."

Seeing Rocco with young hopefuls, encouraging them through an "Annie" tryout, it is apparent that he is a mentor, too. "These kids love musical theater. It makes me happy to see through them that there will still be a musical theater."

There will, if long hours count. On the Friday before Easter, Rocco and Ball held auditions all day in Los Angeles before flying to Sacramento. Rocco went over his notes until 1 a.m. Saturday, then got up at 6 to prepare for marathon local auditions starting at 8. He left at midnight for a flight back to New York. "It's tough, but it's my job. And I think I'm lucky for the work," he said.

He's careful to maintain perspective. "I'm not trying to make it sound like it's rocket science we're doing here," he said.

After a childhood on stage, Rocco found himself, as a young actor 15 years ago, questioning whether he wanted to make this his career. "I was thinking about how petty musical comedy was. It bothered me that what I was doing was not going to change the world."

He took a year off, worked as a chef for a catering service while he thought about his future. He missed show business. "A friend asked me, 'Why do you negate the fact that you make people happy?' I realized that if I could do a show, direct a show and make people laugh, who am I to say that's not important? . . . I decided there was a place for the troubadour, there was a place for the jester."

That place, however, is wherever the work is, which means Rocco travels a lot. It's not unusual for him to work and live in 10 or 12 cities in as many months, so he sees his string of Sacramento gigs as a luxury. "It's invigorating and thrilling to work in one place for a change."

He confessed that the pace sometimes gets to him, the lack of a personal life. "Sometimes I'd like to just go out to dinner, enjoy myself, not think about what I've got to do. But then I usually remember there was a time, not so long ago, when I couldn't afford dinner. That's a great motivator."