Kim, the young, ill-fated Vietnamese lover in the super-sized musical "Miss Saigon," is the kind of role Shannon Tyo grew up aching to play.

The New York City-based actor has an alto voice, but found most of the roles available for Asian-American women are for sopranos. "Growing up, just trying to figure out my voice, going through the roles, I thought, 'Oh, well, I can't do that one, can't do that -- oh! I can do this one, Kim,' " Tyo said.

The musical by the "Les Misérables" team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg will be staged May 1-16 by Pioneer Theatre Company, the third company on the local arts scene this season to stage an adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's popular opera "Madame Butterfly" in its 100th-anniversary year. The updated musical version tells of a young Vietnamese woman who falls in love with an American soldier against the backdrop of her war-torn land. The couple, separated during the fall of Saigon, meet up again years later.

"It's completely a love story," said PTC guest director Karen Azenberg. "That is the central story. There is a young girl who falls desperately in love. The love is informed and invested with the fact that she is in a desperate situation. It's a big love story and the love of her child and what she was prepared to do to ensure he had the best life possible."

The musical was a long-running success after its London premiere in 1989, transferring to New York in 1991. "Miss Saigon" played on Broadway until 2001 and is the 10th longest-running musical in Broadway theater history.

At its New York opening, the show sparked controversy due to the casting of white British actor Jonathan Pryce, who originated the role in London of the Engineer, a Eurasian pimp, wearing yellow face paint. The Actors' Equity Association protested and attempted to block Pryce from entering the country to play the role, angering some in the American theater world who called for casting based on merit, not skin color.

The decades-old casting debate aside, Azenberg says her goal is to draw audiences into the story, despite an ending they might already know. "It's hard to say it's a great show when you are doing a tragedy, but it's a meaningful story," said Azenberg, who will choreograph and direct the show. "There is a piece of it that people can relate to even in the bigness of it and set in a foreign country."

Azenberg returns to PTC after choreographing the Utah company's dazzling (and record-breaking) 2007 production of "Les Misérables," another international sensation by the writing team of Boublil and Schönberg. Other recent credits include "West Side Story" and "A Christmas Carol, The Musical" for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and Richard Greenberg's "The Dazzle" for New York City's Roundabout Theatre.

The director praises PTC's 30-member cast, particularly the young lead, Tyo, who recently graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor of fine arts degree. "She is so talented and smart," Azenberg said. "Fresh out of college, so in a way, she brings that fresh youth that is Kim, in such a genuine way."

Josh Rouah plays Kim's love interest, Chris, the young American. Rouah recently was in Salt Lake City to shoot "The American Mall," an MTV film, and appeared in the 2007 Broadway revival of "Grease" as an understudy for Danny Zuko. Natalie Hill, an Orem native, will play Ellen, his American wife. She played playing the sassy Italian dancer Cha-Cha in the same Broadway revival of "Grease" and has toured in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "Hairspray."

On the other side of the experience spectrum is Kevin Gray, who starred as Scar in the national tour of "The Lion King." He played Raoul and then the Phantom in the Broadway production of "The Phantom of the Opera," as well as leading roles in the Broadway revivals of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "The King and I."

In PTC's "Miss Saigon," he plays that once-controversial role of the Engineer, an opportunist who runs the brothel where Kim ends up working and who serves as the narrator of the story. It's a familiar role to Gray, who played the part in the show's Los Angeles and Toronto casts and can be heard on "The Complete 'Miss Saigon' " soundtrack, recorded in London.

That was the soundtrack that Azenberg listened to for months to prepare to direct the show. "He is it," Azenberg said. "He is the man. He is the man who makes the Engineer what we all think it is today."

Based on Azenberg's concept of reinventing the musical's pieces, Gray said he was interested in returning to the demanding multiethnic role, which requires singing, acting and dancing talent. "While I would never pretend to be the best actor to play this role in any one of those aspects, I do like to think that I cover a lot of the bases," Gray said. "That makes me useful in the telling of this story. I like to feel useful."

The story the musical tells is one of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, "which is the story of all people in a war," Gray says. "It's really important to acknowledge the people whose lives come from struggle. We began our country that way."