“Once On This Island” features Cat Hayes (from left), Joe C. Tolbe, Sarah Ikioka, Yumi Numata, Ryann Murray, Daniel Angel, Lina Krueger, Julie Kawamura, Amy Kamikawa and Erica Jordan. Maui OnStage / Krista Fernandez photo

When you’re putting on a show — like “Once On This Island” — that is almost completely sung, it really helps to have a director who is also a strong choreographer and dancer. Alexis Dascoulias knew right away who that director would be. “I immediately thought of Brian Swasey,” she says. Before she moved here last year to become the executive director for Maui OnStage, Dascoulias attended the University of New Hampshire with Swasey, and he directed three shows at Seacoast Repertory Theater where she was previously executive director. “I love Brian’s style of work — he takes lots of small parts which seem simple individually and puts them together to create a complex and beautiful ‘picture,’” Dascoulias says. “He is a working actor and director — meaning he can relate well to the actors because he’s been there and done that.” As an actor, director, choreographer and dancer, the one thing Swasey hadn’t done was to direct a play on Maui. “Once On This Island,” which opens next weeken