Elmore says that one way or another, everyone has seen or heard the story.

"It's the most classical romantic adventure you could ask for," he said. "The story has been embedded into our culture."

But none of the previous adaptations satisfied him, because they either didn't excite him or appeared too logistically challenging for Theatre in the Rough to mount.

"To do the play that I wanted to do, I had to write it," he said. "We're going back to a sort of Elizabethan way of writing.

"Back then, they wrote for their actors," he said. "I'm writing for the actors we have in Juneau."

To create a "Three Musketeers" that was right for Juneau audiences and actors, Elmore forged a play that cuts swiftly from England to France, from indoors to outdoors, with the fewest amount of actors.

As well as penning the script, Elmore directed five fight scenes between the musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu's guards.

Nevertheless, like the play's protagonist, d'Artagnan, Elmore and his wife and artistic partner, Katie Jensen, had to fight their way through a whole host of problems.

The first of Theatre in the Rough's misfortunes was the destruction of its theater space, lights, sound equipment, costumes and props in a fire that burned down the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in 2006.

But in the middle of the performance schedule for "The Tempest," Elmore was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which causes inflammation of the digestive tract. As a result, "The Three Musketeers" was placed on hold.

Elmore's recovery period was very long and difficult, but he came to several realizations about his life, his art and his future.

"I've come to appreciate this art form as something that helps your life, not something that crushes it with work," Elmore said. "I've refocused my life and what I want out of it."

Elmore also says that one of the good things that came out of his diagnosis is a sharper play.

"The play is vastly better than what we would've put on," he said. "Legions of characters have risen and fallen."

Elmore's diagnosis wasn't the last of the production's crises. The play's audience was intended to watch the performance from bleachers, but due to shipping issues the bleachers will not be installed until the second weekend of the play's run. For opening weekend, Theatre in the Rough promises 40 front-row seats as a stop-gap measure for craned necks.

Regardless of these problems, "The Three Musketeers" promises an ensemble cast of Juneau stage veterans and newcomers. As the famous trio of musketeers, the play features Ed Christian as Athos, Elmore as Porthos and Jack Cannon as Aramis. Eddie Jones plays the young d'Artagnan, and Jensen plays Lady de Winter.

It's Jensen's first villain role in her stage career.

"This group of heroes, of good guys, is something that we need," Elmore said. "You see in every era that these guys are revisited and revised. These guys are the things that I need right now."

From page to stage and all that came in between, Elmore said he is thankful to his wife and a supportive community for helping bring these characters to life. He said the effort truly lived up to the musketeer's motto of "One for all, and all for one."