When Red Mountain Theatre opens its production of the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” this week, the theater’s executive director will probably be backstage mouthing the words to all of the songs in the show.

In fact, he’s doing more than mouthing them.

“It’s driving me batty in the car and the shower, singing all the songs all day long,” Keith Cromwell says. “There’s something about the show I just love. Sometimes I want to get up there and sing it.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. Cromwell has a long history with the show; he appeared in a small tour of it right out of college and has been involved in a number of productions of the musical since then.

Amy E. Johnson and Ethan Hardy Benson star in Red Mountain Theatre’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” (Photo/Stewart Edmonds)

But it was a national tour of “Joseph,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical based on the Biblical story, that really cemented the show in Cromwell’s oeuvre. From 1995-1999, he was in and out of a tour that first starred Sam Harris and later Donny Osmond, and featured Cromwell as any one of Joseph’s 11 brothers, or Pharoah, who in this show takes on the mannerisms of Elvis Presley.

Cromwell was a “swing” for those characters, meaning he learned all of the parts and was at-the-ready to step on stage whenever called.

“There’s a moment I will never forget in my life,” Cromwell recalls. “We had gotten to Memphis, and it was opening night. I had done all the rehearsals to go on as the Pharoah, and I was ready.”

And it happened. The company phone rang, and everything “went into slow motion” as Cromwell watched the stage manager answer it.

“He turned and looked me in the eyes, and I thought, oh, wow, I’m going on opening night as the Pharoah in Memphis – Elvis’ hometown,” he adds. “The whole company rallied around me, and I had a blast. The audience was extremely responsive. It was a really magical moment for me.”

Talk to Cromwell about his time in “Joseph” and it’s clear pretty quickly that the tour was filled with magical moments for him.

First, he spent 14 months on the road with Harris starring as “Joseph,” an exciting time for Cromwell, who had been a fan of Harris’ since his “Star Search” days.

Keith Cromwell, as Pharoah, left, with Sam Harris on the first national tour of “Joseph.”

After that, Cromwell wasn’t on the tour full-time, but he was often called on to fill in for one of the 11 brothers or the Pharoah.

“I was a unique fit, because I knew all of those roles, so they could call me for any of them,” he says. “At the end of Donny’s run of the show, when it closed in Toronto, I went in for the final eight weeks of the run, and it was just a blast.”

He has high praise for the stars he worked with, calling Osmond “the kindest person I ever met in my life” and Harris a “consummate professional.”

He saves his most effusive praise, though, for the show itself.

“I can’t stand it when people give this show a bad name for being silly and campy,” Cromwell says. “At the core of this show, it’s a remarkable story about redemption and forgiveness and love.”

After he quit acting in the show, Cromwell began directing it, and he’s done that more than a dozen times, including an RMT production several years ago.

But he’s not directing it this go-‘round. Stacy Alley, head of musical theater at the University of Alabama, is directing and choreographing, and the cast includes Ethan Hardy Benson, Amy E. Johnson, Kyle Holman, Barry Austin and many others. The show includes a different youth choir each week during its run July 18-Aug. 13 – Highlands School, Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, Hamilton Middle School and Shelby County Arts Council.

And Cromwell will be cheering them on every step of the way as they perform in RMT’s relatively new theater downtown.

“I just turned 60, and I am delighting in the constant reminder of hope and the potential of reconciliation and the power of love in this show,” he says. “I am so fortunate to have been able to be a part of this community for almost two decades. I love it here, and this place allowed this dreamer to believe that something like the arts campus could happen, and it did.”