Longtime Canberra performer Janie Lawson will direct her first show this month: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (ACT Hub, 19 August to 5 September).

The musical revue looks at love and relationships in all their forms: apps and awkward first dates, marriage, same-sex couples having a baby, exhausted parenthood, couples who have been together for decades, and elderly people finding each other at a funeral.

“There is something in there for everyone,” Lawson says. “It’s such a heartwarming show. Hopefully the audience will see a mirror of themselves or the experiences that they’ve had in their lives.”

The show – first performed in 1995 – is the second-longest running Off-Broadway Musical, and was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award as Outstanding Off-Broadway musical in 1997.

Lawson originally intended to audition, but was approached to direct it.

“When the carrot was dangled, I jumped at the opportunity.”

The show will be put on by Free-Rain, a company Lawson considers her creative home. She has been involved with them since they began in the 1990s. She has also performed with Canberra Rep and Philo, among other companies, and received the CAT Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Earlier this year, she wrote and performed DNA the Cabaret at ACT Hub.

But, compared to treading the boards, she says the prospect of directing was initially quite daunting.

“Just being a performer doesn’t necessarily make you a good director,” Lawson said.

Bringing I Love You… to the stage has been a nine-month process – a gestation, one might say.

Before rehearsals began, she undertook a weeklong NIDA directing course, which gave her the tools to cast performers, analyse scripts, design sets and costumes, and structure rehearsals.

“I’ve learnt so much in the whole process,” Lawson said. “It’s been a fabulous experience. To be a director is not just about having a great vision. You have to be structured in your process so that you can create an environment where the actors feel safe so that they can be creative and take risks. I hadn’t realised how much there was to directing before.”

The work is not one continuous story, but a succession of self-contained vignettes about love and relationships. Six people, ranging from their twenties to their fifties, play nearly 60 characters.

Act I explores the journey from dating and waiting to love and marriage, while Act II reveals the agonies and triumphs of in-laws and newborns, trips in the family car, and pickup techniques of the elderly set, Lawson says.

“I really wanted a clever way to join the scenes together so that it’s not all disjointed,” Lawson said.

Her production is unified by two conceptual devices. Cate Clelland’s set is crisp black and white; the costume palette is shades of red, ranging from pale pink to crimson and maroon, to symbolise love and connection. Lawson says she wants the vivid costumes to pop against the monochrome background. The other device Lawson is keeping secret until opening night.

“The music is wonderful; it’s a really diverse soundtrack,” Lawson says.

There are songs with a traditional musical theatre feel, country ballads, and a gospel finale.

As a former teacher of ballroom and Latin American dancing, one of Lawson’s favourite scenes is Marriage Tango: housework and children have deadened a young couple’s sex life; they haven’t been intimate for a long time; they rekindle their passion through the throbbing frenzy of the danceThro. In A Stud and a Babe, two nervous people on their first date imagine themselves as confident, experienced lovers; the choreography is intentionally, endearingly awkward.

Lawson is staging the 2018 revision of the show. Several writers in her NIDA course were adamant she should stage the 1995 original; they argued that updated versions were never as good as the original. She disagreed.

“I absolutely loved the original score … but I just feel the original version didn’t reflect the diversity within society. Now we see more same-sex couples, and the dating scene is all around the use of apps. For it to be relevant now, and to appeal to the diversity of our community, the 2018 version was the version to choose.

“The public will see something of themselves in this show. There is something in here for everyone. I would be very surprised if anyone walked out of that door and didn’t relate to at least one aspect of this show. Even if they don’t, it’s heartwarming, it’s funny, it’s unexpected. It’s constantly moving. There’s no moment to be bored.”

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Free-Rain Theatre Company, ACT Hub, Causeway Hall, Kingston, 19 August–5 September. Tickets: https://www.acthub.com.au/production/i-love-you-youre-perfect-now-change/