It’s a classic labor-management showdown. She wants a 7 1/2 -cent raise for her workers, he wants to show her who’s boss.

They fall in love.

Written by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler in 1954, “The Pajama Game” is best remembered for the songs “Hernando’s Hideaway” and “Hey There” and for Bob Fosse’s choreography on the dance number “Steam Heat.”

The musical – about a labor dispute in the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory – shares the vibe of their other big hit, “Damn Yankees,” which took Broadway by storm the following year. Both shows ran for more than 1,000 performances.

If “The Pajama Game” proves that labor and management can come to a meeting of the minds, the Rye Country Day School production proves that athletes and musicians and faculty and students can work together. The cast draws from all aspects of the campus, says musical director Mary Marcell, who calls this show a “come y’all musical” with a cast of 48.

“It’s a faculty-student musical, but it’s a student experience,” says Marcell. “We want the students to have the full experience. But it’s great to have your chemistry teacher singing next to you in ‘Once a Year Day.’ ”

Marcell says she likes that “the overlap between the sports kids and the artists here is extensive,” Marcell says. “That’s one of the things that makes for a happy community in terms of supporting one other.”

The orchestra of 12 is a mix of faculty, students and professionals, with Westchester theatrical legend Donna Cribari at the piano.

Marcell says there’s an innocence to the musical that is endearing.

“It’s the original form of the stuff we now make fun of,” she says. “It’s not a joke of itself, but something like ‘There Once Was a Man,’ which is a big hoedown number. People either love or hate that song, but there’s something sweet about the originalness of ‘Let’s do a hoedown number’ the first time they’re telling someone they love them. There’s something very honest about that.”

Howe Pearson, who plays Sid – opposite Amanda Cole, as Babe – is president of the student body. He says Sid reveals much in the song “New Town Is a Blue Town.”

“He’s beginning to get comfortable in his surroundings,” Pearson says. “The song has a development from his being uncomfortable in a new town – which we all can relate to – to a more determined ‘This town ain’t gonna lick me’ attitude. ‘This one-horse, two-bit hick of a new town.’”

For Cole, “The song ‘I’m Not at All in Love’ sums up Babe completely. She may say she’s not in love – ‘not a bit, not a pinch’ – and she completely is from the second she sees him. She’s got a rough exterior, but inside she really does have a soft side.”

Director Dick Pike directed “The Pajama Game” here 35 years ago, when it was the school’s senior musical. The seniors from that show are now eligible to join AARP and the building where the musical was staged is not there anymore, lost over the years to development of the campus, Pike says.

“We were much less perfectionists back then,” Pike says. “We didn’t have a performing arts center. We had a tiny stage. We had a much smaller cast.”

While the senior musical is no more, new traditions have taken its place, the most visible of which is that faculty join the students on stage in minor roles.

Choreographer Dulcie Arnold, who also designed the set, had an ace in the hole with RCDS admissions director Matt Suzuki, who dances up a storm alongside two students in the show’s signature number, “Steam Heat.”

“Growing up in Hawaii,” Arnold says, Suzuki “worked with a woman who had worked with Bob Fosse on Broadway. He works hard. It’s good for the kids to see, because he works so hard and this is really his busiest time of the year, but there he is, dancing with a bowler hat.”

Junior Amanda Cole, who plays Babe, says the cast is passionate about the process.

“Everyone on stage really wants to be there more than anything, including the faculty. They have hundreds of papers to grade just as we have hundreds to write, but they all want to be there. It’s fun because they add a whole different element to it. And Mr. Suzuki can dance!”

‘THE PAJAMA GAME’
Where: Rye Country Day School, Cedar Street, Rye.
When: 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday.
Tickets: $12.
Call: 914-925-4576.
With: Matt Reese, John Herbster, Billy Mills, Justin Wayne, Lucy Braid, Howe Pearson, Alex Wolitzer, Amanda Cole, Jesse Wayne, Anna Whitehouse, Emily Watson, Jackie Baron, Andrew Schneider, KJ DeSantis, Michael Stewart, Julia Sayles, Sarah Kaidenow, Raveena Aurora, Sarah Black, Sammy Coughlin, Katrina DeRosa, Abigail Doud, Micole Himmelfarb, Janelle McDermoth, Zoe Parker, Elisa Pelgrift, Becky Sackler, Jacki Sandling, Alexandra Shapiro, Amanda Shulman, Agatha Traveras, David Hinman, Matt Suzuki, David Tafe, Meghan Monahan, Mary Felton, Laurie Bartels, Maureen Irwin, Harriet Rofman, Mitzi Sales, Kristi Licare, Katie Sandling, Josh Geller, Andrew Nathanson, Rachel Blummer, Scott Wieman, Austin Kieffaber, Joe Ramsawak, Farina Alidadi, Johanna Mignon, Sarah Houis, Carole Mariani, Susan Temple, Kailyn Lazarus, Jake McCauley.

PHOTO by Mike Roy/The Journal News: Amanda Cole as Babe and Howe Pearson as Sid perform a duet during rehearsals of “The Pajama Game� at Rye Country Day School.